Standards and Ways of Life: Social Mobility in the Peripheries of São Paulo (2000-2016)

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the social mobility process observed in Brazil in the first decade and a half of this century based on multi-method research in two districts on São Paulo’s periphery. The paper has two purposes: I) to understand the relations between changes in the standard of living, with a more quantitative character, and in the way of life, with qualitative characteristics; and II) to analyze these changes in relation to the mobility project of the different generations of workers in the peripheries of São Paulo. I argue that, although it is possible to see significant improvements in the standard of living, there is great heterogeneity and frustration in the processes of social mobility around three issues: a) income gains that, although significant, do not reach the Fordist standards of past decades; b) almost always unstable improvements in the income of workers and entrepreneurs; c) frustration whereas more intense mobility for those who reach higher levels of education. In turn, an individualizing context with loss of significant ties in the family and in the neighborhoods, unfulfilled promises to reach the “middle class” and the permanent precariousness in public services caused a traumatic impact on the way of life.

social mobility; periphery; São Paulo; way of life; life project