Mathematics overtakes medicine as Mexico’s highest-paid degree

Mathematics has displaced medicine as Mexico’s best-paid university career. Graduates in the field earn an average of 29,887 pesos a month, according to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, or IMCO.

Medicine, which held the top position for the previous three years, now ranks second with average monthly earnings of 27,823 pesos. Finance follows at 27,290 pesos. Architecture, political science, electronics and mechanics, construction and civil engineering, fashion and interior industrial design, educational planning and research, and computer science complete the 10 highest-paid fields.

At the opposite end of the ranking, curriculum design and pedagogy has the lowest average monthly income, at 15,934 pesos. Educational counseling and social work and care follow, with average salaries below 16,300 pesos. The difference between the highest- and lowest-paid careers approaches 14,000 pesos a month, equivalent to a 47% gap.

The IMCO analysis covers labor conditions across 65 university degrees and 14 technical careers. It considers more than income, including unemployment, informal work, occupational risk and the relationship between studies and employment.

The institute warned that similar salaries can conceal very different working conditions. Informality reaches 52% among therapy and rehabilitation professionals, followed by veterinary medicine at 42%, gastronomy and food services at 41%, literature at 39%, and criminology and criminalistics at 38%. Software development and finance have informality rates of 11%, while secondary-school teacher training stands at 12%.