Title not available in English.

Abstract

Social mobility and space mobility have been distinguished features through the historical constitution of Brazilian urban-industrial society in this century. Industrialization and urbanization created the structural conditions for the diversification of labor market in Brazil and for the transition of an occupational structure basead on rural activities toward a broader occupational span, although still not equitative in terms of the quality and income of the jobs created. In this process, rural migrants – specially from the northeast, whose were engaged on lower status jobs in cities and towns – had been those that presented the highest figures of ascending mobility. To evidence this toggle between social mobility and migration in Brazil, in the past and more recent period, is the aim of this paper. It begins with a bibliographical reposrt concerning social mobility and its relation with space mobility in Brazil over the last 90´s, passing through the “Decada perdida” (Lost Decade), as the 80´s has been called. It finishes with a presentation of some recent empirical evidences on the social mobility trends, as it is shown by the data collected in the 1996 National Household Survey (PNAD/96).