Mexico City — It’s not a bank holiday, or even a school holiday, but May 10 in Mexico always feels like a special day, given that families across the country celebrate Mother’s Day, making it difficult to reserve a table in a restaurant, unless well in advance, and the traffic can be an issue, with so many people heading out to eat all at once.
Many companies in the country give their employees who are mothers the afternoon off, or at least the chance to leave early, so that they can enjoy a meal with their families in the afternoon.
According to Mexico’s statistics agency INEGI, there were 56 million women of 12 years or over in the fourth quarter of 2022, of whom 67%, or 38 million, are mothers, and which underscores the importance of Mother’s Day, which therefore celebrates the majority of women in the country.
Of those mothers, 47% are married, 20% live with their partners without being married, 11% are single mothers and 12% are widows.
And seven out of 10 mothers in Mexico are economically active, and in households where there is at least one single mothers, 65% of the household quarterly income comes from mothers’ labor, according to INEGI’s 2020 National Survey of Household Income and Expenditure.
And despite May 10 not being a public holiday, businesses across the country can expect something of a windfall, according to Mexico’s Confederation of Chambers of Commerce, Services and Tourism (Concanaco Servytur).
The biggest revenues on May 10 are for restaurants, bars, event spaces, clothing and footwear retailers, florists and confectioners, with average expenditure of between 500 and 1,100 pesos per person ($28.50-$62-50), according to 2022 figures from Concanaco Servytur.
The confederation estimates that expenditure on Mother’s Day treats, including on meals and gifts, totals around 62.4 billion pesos ($3.5 billion), and which is expected to be higher this year than during the last three years due to the measures imposed to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
And in Mexico City alone, Mother’s Day expenditure totals around 2.51 billion pesos ($142.7 million), according to Concanaco Servytur.