Socio-occupational mobility in Brazil: new occupational stratification procedure and analysis of data from PNAD/2014

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to analyze the intra- and intergenerational socio-occupational mobility in Brazil and the influence of migration and skin color in the person’s social mobility, using data from a national household survey (PNAD) collected in 2014. We propose a new stratification procedure for constructing socio-occupational strata using individuals’ characteristics such as education, income and occupation. Although characterized by short displacements between socio-occupational strata, the social mobility observed in the 2014 data shows chances of upward mobility, indicating certain dynamism in the Brazilian society. Comparing the socio-occupational distribution of workers in 2014 with their father’s distribution, the results show the weakening of lower strata in favor of medium strata. A predominance of circular mobility was observed, indicating that the movements in the socio-occupational structure occurred by substitution and changes in the already existing job positions rather than by the transformation of the occupational structure. The results show that migrant individuals presented higher mobility in relation to non-migrants. However, black and brown persons obtain less upward mobility when compared with white ones, and such difference is smaller among the migrants.

Key words
socio-occupational mobility; social stratification; migration; skin color