[Income and assets of the middle and old age Mexican population]

The purpose of this article is to describe the amount and types of income and assets that the middle and old age population receive and own in Mexico. We use data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) 2001; a prospective panel study with national representation of individuals aged 50 and older. The results confirm the hypotheses of the paper: that the distributions of income and wealth are biased in favor of certain groups, in particular those highly educated; that the majority of the wealth of individuals is in non-financial form; that family help is an important source of income; and that the association between wealth and health is positive in general, which is consistent with the international literature for other countries. In addition, we find that wealth is more equitably distributed than income. We conclude that the wealth indicator offers an additional dimension of analysis than income, with potential to contribute to studies of well-being of the population of middle and old age in Mexico.