Theresa (Tere), a 29-year-old woman from Mexico, has completed secondary school, placing her among the 8 out of 10 young women who reach this level of education, reflecting the current national average (INEGI, 2023). A mother of three with a talent for design, she enjoys making costumes for her children’s school events and occasionally sells them at her local market. Yet, like 15 million other Mexican women, she has not been able to translate her education and skills into economic autonomy and overall well-being. Withou  t access to formal employment or sustainable income, her ability to make meaningful life decisions—such as using resources or exiting violent and codependent relationships—remains limited, demonstrating the importance of changing policymakers' minds about women’s economic autonomy in Mexico.

In her municipality, as in many urban areas in Mexico, public programs exist to support women’s economic participation. However, these public investments have not yet delivered on their promise for marginalized women. Structural barriers such as poverty, gender-based violence (GBV), and unpaid care and domestic work prevent women like Tere from accessing and using these programs and services, thus reinforcing cycles of exclusion.

Mexico illustrates that equal access to education and the existence of public programs to support women’s economic participation may not be enough to ensure that all women achieve equal life outcomes. These efforts fall short if deeper assumptions about inequality and exclusion aren’t considered in policymaking. If Mexico is to achieve shared prosperity, policies and programs must take an intersectional and holistic approach that centers the lived experiences of marginalized women in economic autonomy.

This policy brief argues that the path to shared prosperity in Mexico starts by shifting the way policymakers think. My research shows that the mindsets of local policymakers in Mexico influenced policies related to women’s economic autonomy and their outcomes for marginalized women, either by reinforcing exclusion or enabling transformative change. I also demonstrate that policymakers’ mindsets can change. The case of Co-meta, a second-chance education program, shows how proximity to marginalized women’s lived experiences can shift policymakers’ mindsets, helping them design and implement more inclusive, intersectional, and gender-transformative policies for women’s economic autonomy.

Read the full article about women’s economic autonomy in Mexico by Magdalena Rodríguez Romero at Brookings.