Analysing the poverty trends in Mexico during the 1980s and early 1990s, this book is concerned with the extent to which changes in the levels of poverty have modified the extent of participation in the labour market. The period of analysis runs from 1982 to 1994, when the Mexican economy experienced one of its most profound economic crises and the government set in motion the main stabilization policies and structural adjustment reforms.Until now it has been suggested that the adjustment reforms have had social costs in terms of income and formal employment losses. However, the author puts forward controversial evidence to challenge this proposition. On the one hand, despite income losses, well being indicators in countries such as Mexico continued to improve. On the other hand, employment statistics show that employment grew despite the economic crisis and adjustment. The author explains the paradox of household income declining and thus income poverty increasing, while other welfare indicators improved despite the economic crisis. The analysis of poverty trends are based on an innovative methodology which is applied to databases of income and expenditure surveys of Mexico and the book makes an important contribution to the debate on poverty and the labour market.