In this paper, the aim is to identify a subset of factors for income-to-poverty ratio in urban Mexican households. Special emphasize is paid to examine differences between women- and men-headed families. To this, an original dataset with 45 theoretical factors at the individual/household, community, and regional levels, integrating information from nine sources is created. To these data, additive quantile models are estimated via the boosting algorithm.
From a gender standpoint, the following main contributions come from this paper. First, educational lag is particularly relevant for women-headed households. Second, there is a gendered-life cycle in the income trajectory for poor households with a head holding a medium level of education. Third, it is identified some households, traditionally disregarded, that may be even poorer: those lacking social connectedness, without credit card, with an extended composition, in which the woman head spends a large part of her time on housework, and families headed by a young woman with a medium level of education. Finally, communities and regions where families have a lower income-to-poverty ratio are characterized for having and unequal income distribution, with a low human development, a low women’s economic participation, with a poor quality of services, with low levels of gender-based violence in the public sphere but high levels of gender-based violence in the family context.