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Abstract
Food security is defined as the situation when all people, at all times, have physical and
economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food
preferences for a healthy and active life (FAO 1996). According to official figures, 24.8% of
Mexican population experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2010. This represents an
increase of 3.1 percentage points with respect to 21.7% in 2008. In other words, this represents
an increase of 4.1 million individuals, from 23.9 to 28 million, living under these conditions in
two years, from 2008 to 2010 (CONEVAL 2011). CONEVAL validated the Mexican Food
Security Scale (EMSA, for its acronym in Spanish) as a reliable instrument to measure food
security using Rasch model at the national and state level in Mexico (Carrasco, Peinador, and
Aparicio 2010). Despite the validity that the food security scale is proved to have, to the best of
our knowledge, there is no available study that has intended to find association between
demographic factors and food insecurity at a national level in Mexico. This study will bridge the
gap in the literature regarding the identification of factors that determine food insecurity in
Mexico. The data used in this study come from The Socioeconomic Conditions Module (MCS
2010, for its acronym in Spanish) of the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey
(ENIGH, for its name in Spanish) in the third quarter of 2010. In this study we use an ordered
probit model, along with nationally representative data and a newly developed food security
scale for Mexico. The analysis was conducted for the general (total) population first and then for
a subpopulation group of rural lower-income households. We found that households with
younger, less-educated household heads were more likely to suffer food insecurity. Other groups
that were found to be vulnerable in terms of food insecurity include: households headed by a
single, widow or divorced mother, households with disabled family members, households with
strong indigenous background, rural households, low income families, non-agricultural
households and households with kids.