Migration, labor and income in the nineties: the case of São Paulo Metropolitan Area

Abstract

During the nineties, following international trends, Brazil, and particularly the São Paulo Metropolitan Area, underwent a huge transformation in its productive structure, characterized by the flexibilization and rationalization of the labor process with negative impacts on the level of employment. Starting in the eighties, the loss of capacity for maintaining a high proportion of employees in the metropolitan labor market was accompanied by a reduction of the migratory flows toward the region. More recently some researchers have suggested the transitory nature of this deceleration of migration and the possibility of the recrudescence of migratory flows to São Paulo and its main metropolitan area. If this hypothesis should be confirmed, there is no doubt about the effect on metropolitan labor market. This paper analyzes migration in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area in the nineties using data from the Employment and Unemployment Survey (PED - Dieese/Fundação Seade), seeking to evaluate the impact of these movements on the labor force and their effects on the unemployment level in the region. The analyses also take into account the consequences of this process for the conditions of participation and remuneration of the migrant labor force.