The objective of this article is to analyze the Brazilian elites based on socioeconomic variables that affect the intergeneration occupational mobility between members and former-members of this social stratum. The methodological procedures used here consist of investigating the relationship between ascending, stable and descending intergeneration occupational mobility and other variables as skin color, occupation in the public or private sector, number of jobs, schooling and age insertion in the labor market. The empirical source is the social mobility supplement presented in the "1996 National Survey by Residential Sample" (PNAD) carried out by IBGE. The main conclusion of this study is based on the evidences that the Brazilian elites present an ambivalent profile in their social composition: on one hand, social inertia was found in 15% of the members of this stratum and, on the other hand, 85% of the ascending members could easily fall, since they possess the same social characteristics of the ones that have once been excluded from the elite.
Occupational mobility; Elites; Social inequality; Social and intergenerational mobility
