INEGI carried out its survey ENCIG 2023 from late October to mid-December 2023. “87.4 % dijo que sus familiares eran quienes mayor confianza le inspiraban” (87.4 percent said that their relatives were the ones who inspired the most trust in them).
The statistics institute of Jalisco published the results for that state by degree of trust. Mucha confianza, a lot of trust, went to family from 50.2 percent of respondents, to coworkers from 33.6 percent and to neighbors from 21.4 percent.
In 1975, the anthropologist Larissa Adler de Lomnitz described the Cerrada del Cóndor, a shantytown in Mexico City, in the journal Demografía y Economía. Of about 180 households, “solamente diez unidades residenciales estaban desligadas de sus vecinos” (only ten households were cut off from their neighbors). The others formed 45 networks of reciprocal exchange, averaging four or five families.
“Las redes están formadas en su mayoría por parientes cercanos, pero también incluyen a vecinos no emparentados” (The networks are formed mostly of close relatives, but they also include unrelated neighbors). When a man loses his work, “su familia recibe alojamiento y es mantenida mientras se le encuentra empleo” (his family receives lodging and is supported while a job is found for him).
For a study published in 2009, two researchers asked 500 adults in Aguascalientes about 60 popular sayings related to corruption. One was Más vale tener palancas que dinero, “it is better to have levers than money.” 83 percent of respondents linked it to corruption.
Another was El que a buen árbol se arrima, buena sombra le cobija, “whoever draws close to a good tree is sheltered by good shade.” 76 percent said they had used it.
INEGI’s National Survey of Employment and Social Security of 2017 asked who cares for the children up to six years old of working mothers. “El 16.3% fueron atendidos en una guardería” (16.3 percent were cared for in a day care center). “El 83.7% estuvo al cuidado de una persona” (83.7 percent were in the care of a person), “destacando la abuela como la principal cuidadora (65.6%)” (above all the grandmother, the main caregiver at 65.6 percent).
In August 2019, Mexico’s Labor Secretary, Luisa María Alcalde Luján, spoke at the ExpoEmpleo OCC job fair. According to Excélsior, she said that 56 percent of employed people in Mexico had found their job through personal contacts, friends or relatives. Only 25 percent of job seekers used private agencies or job boards.
In Mexico, a person who tiene palanca, “has a lever,” has a connection who can open a door. In a 2021 article, the researchers Arellano-Gault and Trejo Alonso describe the palanca as a mechanism for exchanging favors among acquaintances and “acquaintances of acquaintances.” It forms a network “that rests on relationships of trust.”
One participant in their focus groups said: “En México, la vida se compone de una serie de palancas” (In Mexico, life is made up of a series of levers).
Compadrazgo is the bond between a child’s parents and the child’s godparents, who become each other’s compadres. A study in the Revista Mexicana de Sociología on communities of the Huasteca describes it as “a true bond of friendship” that ties the whole community together.
The godfather may take the father’s place in providing for the home if the father dies. The study observes that “a well-chosen godfather is worth more than a modern life insurance policy.”