Structural and exchange mobility in the assimilation of immigrants to Brazil

Abstract

Data obtained from a study of social mobility in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo are used to show how far there exist differences in mobility rates as between immigrant and Brazilian-born sections of the adult population. The Index of Association, based upon a comparison of filial with parental status, while revealing a significant difference in mobility rates as between those of purely Brazilian and those of mixed origin, seems, however, to conceal other significant differences. Among male adults in Sao Paulo, the proportion rising in social status greatly exceeds those who fall a phenomenon made possible by changes in the socioeconomic structure of the city. A distinction must thus be made between exchange mobility and structural mobility, and a possible means of calculating the latter is suggested. An estimate of the degree to which the overall rate of social mobility observed in the city is due to structural change is offered, while further analysis shows that immigrants and their children profited more than pure Brazilians by the opportunities offered by structural change. It is suggested that the process of immigrant assimilation is marked by an initially high rate of social mobility which decreases in subsequent generations as their dispersion through the status scale gradually approximates the dispersion of the native population.