Social Mobility and Migration in Brazil; Bibliographical Review and Empirical Elements for Analysis

Abstract

Social and spatial mobility were key features in the construction of Brazilian urban, industrial society in the 19th century. Industrialization and urbanization created the conditions for unifying the Brazilian labor market, as well as the transition from an occupational structure based on farm jobs to a broader, more diversified occupational structure, albeit an unequal one in terms of the quality and income of the jobs created. During this process, migrants from the rural area, particularly those from the North-east, showed the highest rates of ascending mobility because of their socio-occupational status of employment in the countryside. Revealing this link between social mobility and migration in Brazil, both in the past and more recently, is the aim of this article. To this end, it begins with a bibliographical essay on social mobility and its relationship with spatial mobility in Brazil over the past fifty years, and the construction of urban, industrial society in the 1990s, including the Lost Decade. It ends with the presentation of certain recent empirical evidence on the advance of social mobility in the country in light of data gathered by the 1996 NADP.