of labor productivity, defined as output per worker, and the ratio of workers to total population, and calculate the former for each of the four comprehensive sectors of the economy : agriculture, manufacturing, nonmanufacturing industry ( mining, utilities and construction ), and services. in the most recent worst - performing period, with available data for 1980 – 2005, three basic observations are noteworthy. first, meager per - capita gdp growth during these years was the net result of an increase in the ratio of workers to population, whose effect slightly surpassed that of a fall in aggregate labor productivity. second, aggregate labor productivity fell because, relative to total labor in the economy, production dropped in agriculture and nonmanufacturing more than it grew in manufacturing and services. in other words, the increasing role of manufacturing and services in the mexican economy did not sufficiently compensate for the diminishing influence of the other two, smaller sectors. table 1 third, sectoral labor productivity increased only in the least and in the most productive sectors : agriculture, mainly because of labor emigration, and manufacturing. in the other two sectors labor productivity declined at roughly the same pace. table 2 it seems that if some aspects are highlighted as obstacles to economic expansion, they should be proven to have a significant influence on those sectors identified as negative contributors to productivity growth. specifically, the fall of labor productivity in the services sector should be given more importance than that observed in nonmanufacturing, when the relative sizes of these two sectors in the economy are considered. at a conjectural level, one might identify a possible common characteristic between the two, given that the fall in nonmanufacturing labor productivity has been concentrated in construction and that in services has been generalized, with the only exception being transport, storage, and communications. a large part of both construction and services exhibits a high degree of informality. it is well known that informality is linked to small - scale production, low investment in new technologies, and poor incentives for human capital accumulation. additionally, a prominent feature of large service segments, such as education and health, is a lack of or limited competition among providers, lowering incentives to seek efficiency. on the other hand, one must find possible reasons as to why manufacturing has not registered more robust labor productivity growth. it might be the case that the opening up to foreign competition has taken many years and until recently allowed a certain degree of protection, especially from competition with countries not covered by free trade agreements.

from 96 to 13 per thousand live births ; the illiteracy rate fell from 43 to 8 percent ; and average schooling increased from 2 to 9 years. a similar message could be distilled from other indicators, such as access to tap water, power and sanitation. also, without ignoring that ample segments of the population still live in poverty, today most people enjoy the basic benefits of modern life, such as televisions, refrigerators and other electronic appliances, which in the past were either nonexistent or of lower quality and relatively more expensive and thus reserved for only the wealthiest. and according to some human development measures, notably those regarding health, mexico has reached levels close to those of rich societies. in contrast to this advancement, the long - term expansion of income per capita, which summarizes the population ’ s capacity to satisfy its desires, has been less impressive. bis central bankers ’ speeches specifically, during the same six decades – 1950 to 2010 – the average annual growth in per - capita gdp was 2 percent, a rate which is disappointing, at least, for two reasons. first, it is similar to that registered during the same period by some mature economies, such as the united states. since mexico is a developing country, presumably exhibiting a wider set of basic unexploited investment opportunities, output growth should have been higher, narrowing the development gap with the most industrialized nations. furthermore, mexico ’ s economic evolution compares unfavorably with leading emerging economies which five decades ago were either below or at its own level of income. for instance, while in 1960 mexico had roughly the same per - capita gdp as singapore and more than double that of south korea, now, some fifty years later, this indicator for mexico is only one - fifth that of singapore and less than one - half that of south korea. even the so - called stabilizing development era of 1958 – 1970, which posted the most impressive record in mexico ’ s modern history, looks inferior when contrasted with these economies, which have converged to developed - nation standards. second, the referred overall growth rate covers a significant slowdown in the last thirty years, when per - capita gdp grew, on average, only 0. 6 percent per year. this anemic pace, which would take about 116 years for doubling income, occurred in spite of the implementation of market - oriented reforms, including the opening up of the economy to foreign trade and investment, the privatization of state - owned enterprises