A life in Mexico
Work is plentiful and pays little. What you lean on is the people you are related to.
In One Life, a Mexican life is born in Puebla, Mérida, León, Toluca, Culiacán or Querétaro. Children walk to school, through primaria and secundaria and on to prepa, the preparatory school that comes before university. The money is in pesos.
What the game gives you
Work in Mexico is plentiful in the game and pays little: a Mexican life earns a fraction of what the same job pays in the United States, and many prices are lower to match. A large part of Mexico’s economy is informal — the family business, the job without a contract — which is part of why pay is low and protection thin.
Health care sits in the middle of the eight. A Mexican life pays more of its own medical costs than a European one, and less than an Indian or Nigerian one. The state pension starts at 65 in the game and is small.
What a Mexican life leans on, more than the state, is family. Relatives help with children, with money and with housing, and expect help in return. The game plays both sides of that bargain.
Mexico is also, after India, the country that receives the most money from relatives working abroad, and the question of leaving, for a bigger city or for another country, is one many Mexican families know. In the game, “Stay close or move away?” is asked of every life.
Money in the game
The game sets each country’s money against the United States, then shows it in local currency, here in pesos at a fixed rate of MX$17 to the dollar. In a life here, an ordinary job pays about 23% of what the same job pays in the US, and everyday prices are about 34% of American prices. A university education costs about 22% of the American price, and medical bills about 60% of what an American pays out of pocket for the same illness.
Those ratios are the shape of a life here. Pay is under a quarter of the American figure and prices about a third, so money is tight in most Mexican lives. Illness costs over half the American bill, a heavy load against Mexican pay.
The odds
The UN estimates life expectancy at birth in Mexico at about 76 years (73 for men, 78 for women). In the game, a Mexican life has many doors and low pay behind most of them; who you are related to, and what you do for them, shapes the life as much as the job does.