Centro de Estudos da Metrópole

The effect of nonmarket mechanisms in labor market operation

Coordination: Nadya de Araújo Guimarães

Despite the development of a robust sector of labor intermediation aiming at job placement opportunities - a new trend in the Brazilian labor market - our previous research indicated that the ordinary mechanisms proved quite fruitless as a means of fighting inequality and poverty in São Paulo. In contrast, social networks seem to be the way in which ordinary people gain access to employment, in spite of it’s quality.

Thus, the first current focus of the area is to explore the effect of these private non-market mechanisms as major initiatives aimed at raising the chances that an individual has to engage in the labor market. The first module in this line of research investigates the formation and operation of personal networks, making use of new methodological tools (network analysis, rather than surveys as in the previous phase) and intensifying the dialogue with the partners of CMS.

On the other hand, this line of research is also committed to examining the flourishing set of compensatory policies that became a major issue within the Brazilian debate, since 2000, as alternatives to fight against poverty and / or enduring racial inequalities. The purpose of this project is to engage in this discussion by bringing new data on the effectiveness of such initiatives. A second module will evaluate recent affirmative action adopted by prestigious public universities which intend to broaden the occupational chances of blacks and the poor and in order to stimulate their social mobility. International cooperation (with colleagues from the United States, Britain, France and South Africa) will soon allow us to compare the results obtained in Sao Paulo with trends in other major metropolises.

Thus, module 1 explores the personal networks, which have proved effective for succeeding in the job market. From a sample of 1.549 respondents who were looking for a job who had already been interviewed in a representative survey conducted in 2004 in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, the project selected a sub-sample of typical cases, for a new round of in depth interviews. The cases are chosen randomly using a typology constructed through the GoM technique (grade of membership). Two interviews are being conducted with each person. The first details the occupational trajectory and identifies the respondent’s sphere of sociability and key people related to these spheres; the second intends to map the network and to link providers of employment with the personal connections.

As in previous phases, the national and international dialogue is still being sought. At the national level, the module compares secondary data (provided by household surveys – PED and PME - held at major cities), analyzing a long series of results related to mechanisms of access to jobs and identifying patterns of variation in different structures of regional labor markets. Internationally, the previous engagement in networks of scientific cooperation provides supports to explore the specificities of Brazilian trends. The dialogue with the Purcell’s research (Koen and Purcell, 2004) on mediation in Europe is supported by the cooperation that has already been established previously by the Department of Sociology at USP, Cebrap and the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick.

Concurrently, we are seeking additional exchange with colleagues from Lasma (Institut du Longitudinal, such as Degenne Marry, whose production in the field of networks and integration into the labor market in France is remarkable, as seen in Degenne et al., 1991, and Degenne and Forse, 1994). Gender and age continue to require intellectual attention, and our long-term cooperation with French laboratories at CNRS, such as the GTM (Genre, Travail, Mobilité) or Printemps (Professions, Travail Identités) ensures the continuity of the engagement of Helena Hirata and Didier Démazièere as international partners. This research module also includes national partners from other Brazilian institutions, such as Elisa Reis (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and Guilherme Xavier Sobrinho (Statistics Foundation, State of Rio Grande do Sul / FEE).

Module 2 follows the educational performance (tertiary level) and career of people admitted and not admitted in affirmative action programs conducted by two prestigious Brazilian public universities. One of them, in Sao Paulo - nationally recognized - recruits students from all over the country and also provides professionals on a national scale. The second university is recognized regionally and is located in the metropolitan area of Salvador. The project examines three experimental samples: 1) candidates for affirmative action policies that were not admitted; 2) admitted candidates who benefited from affirmative action; and 3) candidates by traditional criteria. The research design follows three steps: i) post-selection trajectory analysis of non-admitted candidates (group 1); ii) comparison of educational performance of groups 2 and 3, using data provided by the institutions, iii) comparison of professional trajectories of groups 1, 2 and 3, based on the interviews. Additional crossed interviews with parents will be held in a sub-sample from groups 1 and 2.

Coordination: Márcia Lima

This project aims to elucidate the analytical capabilities of the variable "race" in the analysis of the phenomena of production and reproduction of poverty and inequality, a central theme of research at the Center for Metropolitan Studies / National Institute for Metropolitan Studies. It is part of a broader research agenda that aims to investigate the effects of changes in economic structure and policies to combat inequalities in the shaping of racial inequality in Brazil, with particular interest in the effects of these transformations in the labor market.

The study focuses on the first decade of this century since, during this period, Brazilian society witnessed significant changes in the field of inequalities in general and racial inequalities in particular. Moreover, the country has undergone strong economic changes such as increased formalization of employment and real increase in the minimum wage. In terms of coping with racial inequality, the implementation of affirmative action policies and the intense debate about its relevance in coping with inequalities of opportunities in Brazil led to the reinvigoration of the debate about race and class - more specifically about the effect of the "race" attribute in the configuration of social inequalities – in Social Sciences and for the first time it became a major issue in public debate.

We intend, therefore, to address what is considered crucial in studies of racial inequalities, the boundaries between race and class. In this sense, racial inequalities will be analyzed from empirical situations which could be considered as similar contexts of class (such as income, education, space). The situations are:

Contexts marked by high degrees of poverty and spatial segregation - The objective of this study will be to observe the relevance of the analytical variable "race" in situations of high poverty. In this case, the analysis will be based on a comparison between the results of data from two surveys conducted by teams of CEM-CEBRAP, in 2006, one in "Tiradentes City", a neighborhood of Sao Paulo and another in the “Peace Neighborhood”, in Salvador. The databases which have already been collected provide rich and relevant information for the purpose of this work, having investigated aspects related to occupational status and job opportunities, which were thoroughly investigated, as were the personal characteristics of the interviewees, their forms of sociability and access mechanisms and the intensity with which they rely on public services and benefits.

Analysis of insertion of employees with higher education in the metropolitan labor market - in this case, the analysis will be focused on a different context, having to do with how race influences the opportunities of individuals who share what is considered to be the main means for overcoming inequality - the higher education degree. In this case, the study will examine this process of integration into the labor market during this decade, seeking to identify the effects of structural changes in the labor market and the characteristics of the labor supply on racial inequalities.

This part of the research will also analyze, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the more specific question of the recent changes in the labor supply brought about by public policies for affirmative action in higher education, such as the Prouni.

Methodology and operational design - The operational design basically consists of the analysis of aggregated data, part of which have already been produced in projects conducted at the Center for Metropolitan Studies. It combines the analysis of data from a survey in regions strongly influenced by poverty in 2006, in Tiradentes City, Sao Paulo, and Peace Neighborhood, in Salvador, with the analysis of data from major occupational databases (Employment and Unemployment Survey - SEADE, Monthly Employment Survey) and demographic data (National Survey of Household Sample- IBGE and Demographic Census - IBGE). The temporal frame of reference for such analysis will be the first decade of the 21st Century.

Team:

Alexandre Abdal

Bruno Komatsu

Danilo France

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Flavia Rios

Luciana de Jesus Dias

Rogerio Barbosa

Thiago Soares

International comparisons  (Line of research completed)

Coordination: Alvaro Augusto Comin

This project aims to advance the understanding of the factors that explain the dynamism of knowledge based economies, contributing to identify actions that enhance the development potential of big cities, maximizing possible distributive and integrative effects for the poorest part of its inhabitants as well.

In empirical terms (supported by earlier studies by this team), the selection of niche activities to be studied focus on areas that maintain more transversal intersections, that is, which maintain relations of provisioning and consumption of diversified activities (such as information technology, fashion, health, higher education and R & D, tourism, gastronomy and media - advertising, journalism, television and audiovisual) before production chains. For the structural characterization of these activities, the best-known statistical bases will be used (PED Rais, Cempre, PIA, PAS, PAC, Pintec), administrative sources (Added Fiscal Value) and sectorial studies of business associations.

The emphasis, however, will be on case studies supported by qualitative methods. In terms of comparisons, given that the economy of big cities has unique characteristics in the national arena, we will focus the study on economic capital in countries with trajectories and level of development similar to Brazil (South Korea, India and China).

Team:

Carlos Torres Freire

Abdal Alexandre Cunha

Maria Carolina Oliveira

Alexandre Barbosa

Bruno Komatsu

Victor Callil

Mariana Toledo

Coordenação: Argelina Figueiredo

Despite the advances made in recent years in major Brazilian cities, in regard to the access of poor people to public policies (Figueiredo, Torres and Bichir, 2006), many inequalities persist, especially when it comes to the quality of services. This research project is dedicated to investigating the variables that limit the access of poor households to social services, assuming that the information available to policy-makers about the location of these families plays a role in their results. Thus, bureaucratic factors may adversely affect the access that less educated and less connected families have to these services.

Following the results of previous findings, the research has three main goals:

(a) detailing the identification of differences in access that different social groups have to public services, taking as central variables in this analysis the areas covered by these policies, the space and income;

(b) investigating in detail the factors that explain the lower level of access of low-income families to social services, considering four key types of variables: institutional, civil society organization, spatial segregation and demographic variables;

(c) investigating the implementation of the policy as a central dimension of access to social services. Our hypothesis is that aspects of the design and implementation of policy can - often unintentionally - limit the access of poor to services.

Part of the data for such analysis has already been produced: two surveys on the access of poorest 40% to social services were conducted in 2004 and 2006, both in Sao Paulo and Salvador. In 2007, another survey, applied in two poor neighborhoods of Sao Paulo and Salvador, provided new information about social participation and access to services. Finally, in 2006 and 2007, another survey and eight focus groups with teachers from primary schools located in rich and poor neighborhoods in Sao Paulo were performed.

These data provide rich material for different empirical analyses. Using CHAID techniques, the goal is to better understand the association between access to income transfer programs and social participation, based on surveys applied to low-income families in 2004, 2006 and 2007. We will also produce a typology of primary school teachers in São Paulo, based on GoM techniques, in an effort to bring to light aspects of the implementation of educational policy.

Coordination: Marta Arretche

The objective of this project is to study the mechanisms that affect the state's capacity to provide social services. More specifically, the effects of the relationship between central government and local governments, at national and metropolitan levels, on revenue, expenses, as well as on the provision of social services in Brazilian municipalities form the central objects of study.

Four empirical questions that emerge from the international literature and findings of previous research, organize the research:

(a) the vertical axis of the state structure, that is, how intergovernmental relations are structured to provide local governments with the capacity and incentives to offer public services; this first dimension aims at exploring the institutional mechanisms by which central government coordinates the provision of public policies by local governments;

(b) the provision of public services and funds in metropolitan areas, considering the concentration of poor and rich populations in these cities; this second dimension focuses on the specific needs of metropolitan cities and their governance structures;

(c) a third dimension deals with the role of political parties in the inequality of funding and services offered to Brazilian municipalities;

(d) the project also aims at analyzing the distribution of funds in the city of São Paulo, in order to address spending priorities of municipal governments.

The Information Bank about Municipalities from CMS already includes collection of information on all local governments in Brazil, with reliable data about their income, expenditures and election results, as well as demographic and economic information. This database covers the period 1996-2006, including two municipal mandates (1997-2000 and 2001-2004) as well as the more recent period.

Team:

Edgard Fusaro

Fernando Gonçalves

Patrick Cunha da Silva

Paulo Loyola

Coordination: Vera Schattan

The research project Participation and Health Policy in the City of Sao Paulo follows the distribution and consumption of public health services in the county since 2001 focusing on decentralization processes and intramunicipal social participation.

The study explores the relationships between processes of participation and distributive outcomes, dialoguing with the literature that emphasizes distributive and procedural aspects of public policy (Abelson & Gauvin 2005; Fung 2004 Rowe, G. & Frewer, L. 2004; House, E. &Howe, K. 2000). In this research, the Health Councils are studied as intermediary political institutions that can influence the distribution of public health services.

At earlier stages, the research team at CMS developed a model that allows comparing participatory processes and empirically testing the relationship between the networks included in each council, on the one hand, the characteristics of their organizational procedures and their coordination with other institutions and, on the other, their ability to influence health policy. Currently this model is being tested in the analysis of six health councils in subdistricts located in poor and remote areas of the city of São Paulo, which have similar positions in the HDI. The hypothesis being tested suggests that there is a positive correlation between the presence of more deliberative and inclusive councils in remote areas of the city and the progressive growth of supply and use of public health services in these areas.

Continuing the research, in-depth interviews with local health managers are in progress. The objective is to analyze the impact of decisions and recommendations made by councils on the decision making process in health policy. The project also has also continued the analysis of public health services distribution - the provision of basic doctor appointments and hospitalizations - in the subdistricts of São Paulo.

The transfer of the research results will be organized, in the subdistricts, in collaboration with the respective councils and supervisors; at the municipal level, in collaboration with the City Council and the Department of Health.

Team:

Fabiola Fanti

Felipe Szabzon

Marcelo Francisco Dias

Coordination: Fernando Limongi

Given that electoral politics have considerable influence on the provision of public policies, this project investigates voting behavior in the metropolis. The results of previous investigations carried out by CMS showed that voter behavior is highly predictable and related to socioeconomic factors. However, these results so far have been based only on the city of São Paulo.

This study is unique in the Brazilian literature in terms of the methods and data used. Instead of dealing with information from surveys, we worked with the election results which have the lowest possible level of aggregation, namely the ballot-box. The previous findings relate only to São Paulo, the most developed state of the country in which, moreover, the two main national political parties have deep roots. Thus, it is necessary to know whether these findings hold up for other states. Therefore, the current stage of the project is close to extending the spatial range of the research, covering as many states as possible. The project will continue to employ the methodology of Gary King to investigate the electoral bases of parties and candidates, through a combination of electoral data and socioeconomic variables.

Such efforts have already been made, regarding the pattern of distribution of votes in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, aiming to compare the results there with those already obtained for the city of São Paulo. The organization of data for the study of intra-urban voting behavior has been completed. However, besides differences in the level of wealth, the political history of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro and its role in national politics contrast with those of Sao Paulo.

Another objective currently pursued is to seek mechanisms that explain the identified patterns - which will be done through empirical testing of theoretically oriented hypotheses related to what the literature identifies as the aspect of coordination of electoral competition. This requires explaining how the parties mobilize voters in Brazil, exploring the most important answer in the comparative literature regarding the poor people’s vote – i.e. the client-oriented relationship.

Team:

Argelina Figueiredo

Fernando Guarnieri

Lara Mesquita

Andreza Davidian

Andrezza Ribeiro

Coordination: Eduardo Marques

In this project we can begin by understanding the role of networks in the reproduction of poverty, given that previous research has shown that both segregation and personal networks help explain poverty (Wilson 1987, Massey and Denton, 1993 and Briggs, 2001). We had already noticed this in the case of Sao Paulo during the first phase of CMS (Marques and Torres, 2005). Indeed, our preliminary analysis on the subject suggests that the networks explain a larger part of the variability of income than other variables such as occupational structure or the number of years of schooling (Marques et al., 2008).

The project then seeks to detail how the networks appear as intermediary structures that people use in their daily practices. This is being done through the deepening of the previous analysis, specifying the networks as mechanisms of both (re) production and overcoming poverty and comparatively analyzing the importance of networks in other social contexts. To this end, the following lines of analysis are developed:

(a) Social structure in a comparative perspective: in cooperation with Iuperj, UFRJ and Science Politique (France), social structures will be studied in a comparative perspective, making use of both EGP classes and socio-occupational categories, in continuity with what we have already begun in Marques, Scalon and Oliveira (2007);

(b) Social support networks: this consists in the study of support networks in everyday situations and at critical moments in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, using data from a survey conducted in 2008 involving all social groups in an effort to continue research which has generated important findings (Marques et al, 2008). This analysis is being complemented by a new survey in 2010;

(c) Networking and social mobility: with the focus now on the spheres of family and neighborhood, as well as their survival strategies and their living conditions. The intention is, again, to broaden the focus, studying the relationship between networks and mobility, with emphasis on the lower middle class.

The research has used different techniques, including network analysis, GIS, analytical and descriptive statistics and in-depth interviews. In 2010, a survey of social support and networks was conducted in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The research module also includes as partners Celi Scalon (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), Paula Miraglia (Ilanud), Teresa Caldeira (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and Edmond Preteceille (Sciences Po, France).

Team:

Renata Bichir

Encarnación Moya

Miranda Zoppi

Graziela Castello

Coordenação: Adrian Gurza Lavalle

The project is part of the module Sociability Urban life at CMS-NIST and takes as its object access to the state of civil organizations and their role as intermediaries between the poorer strata of the population and the state itself, examining the relational patterns of thematic poverty networks and other networks driven by specific issues, in the midst of a binational research - Mexico and Brazil.

In Mexico, the project incorporates relational databases on Mexico City that already exist, with field research and new databases in small and medium-sized cities state in the state of Veracruz. In Brazil, the research combines existing databases on the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

The project has two components: the first seeks to understand the modus operandi of civilian organizations, i.e. internal hierarchies, capacity for action and strategies of the relational universe of civil organizations in both contexts; the second seeks to illuminate the connections between this modus operandi and the political institutions of their respective contexts, paying attention to the intermediation of public resources and services performed by the actors studied.

The work has as invited researchers Ernesto Isunza Vera (Centro Superior de Estudios en Antropologia Social - CIESAS, Xalapa, Mexico) and Elisa Reis (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ)

Team:

Natália Salgado Bueno

Julia Moreto Amâncio

Coordination: Ronaldo Almeida

This project takes into account previous results from the CMS project, but deepens the theoretical propositions regarding the mechanisms for alleviating poverty and the reproduction of social inequality related to urban sociability as well as its effects on the access of people to material and symbolic resources .

With support from the comparison of ethnographic studies conducted in contexts of "peripheral situations", three lines of research are being developed:

(a) symbolic violence, understood as a social grammar that hierarchically classifies both locations within the urban space and sectors of the population, by means of status and stigmas attached to them;

(b) the political vulnerability due to the relationship between these populations and the state (here taken as a continuum of policies that can be both inclusive and segregation inducing);

(c) the quality of formal and informal social ties (religion, family, community associations), which may facilitate or limit access to material resources.

The researchers involved in this project do not aim to produce exhaustive new data, but to monitor the ethnographic field and introduce a longitudinal dimension, seeking to explore the effects of these mechanisms over time.

The main methodology is the comparison of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three different contexts of poverty. Part of this material has been collected in previous stages, but its analysis, as material to answer the question about their impacts on social inequality has not yet been sufficiently explored. Thus, all locations will be analyzed in relation to their respective "central" and "peripheral situations", as regards the production of symbolic goods and materials. The "peripheral situations" are:

- Paraisopolis in relation to Morumbi, in Sao Paulo;

- Cidade Tiradentes in relation to the Expanded Center of Sao Paulo;

- A squatter occupied territory "Peace Neighborhood", in the city of Salvador, in relation to private condominiums in its surroundings.

Each situation will be considered in a relational perspective and compared with each other. The goal is to understand the common and cross mechanisms which, at the same time, soften urban poverty and reproduce social inequality. Importantly, the surveys already implemented in Paraisópolis, Tiradentes (both in Sao Paulo) and Peace Neighborhood (Salvador) - which were designed based on ethnographic research undertaken in the previous phase of research - will be a reference to this new immersion in the field work.

Coordenação: Henri Arraes Gervaiseau

This project can be considered as an innovative laboratory, focused on the exploration of different ways of conceiving the relationship between the picture-essay and the frame of reference generated by scientific methodology. This is a new experiment that creates a lab at the interface between documentary and social sciences, in tune with cutting-edge research in this field that has developed over the last decades, especially in Brazil. The proposal is to produce documentaries capable of producing audiovisual configurations of the city, compositions of images and sounds capable of offering new angles of perception of the urban experience not revealed by social indicators, or the conceptual framework that guides the empirical research.

Accordingly, partnerships with SESC, the Department of Film, Radio and Television ECA / USP and Culture TV are crucial. CEM Audiovisual brings together teachers and students from undergraduate and postgraduate at ECA-USP and technical professionals, who meet in projects that aim to explore the boundaries between audiovisual production and research in social sciences. Created in 2003, it has since then been producing, video and film documentaries, focusing on issues related to the metropolis, both from the research of the institution and from social science research linked to burning issues of current Brazilian urban reality.

A trilogy about Tiradentes Citiy is currently under way having as its focus point the experience of housing, each with a different perception angle facing the social experience being approached. The first episode, already finished, deals with the common and substantive experience of a group of characters, of living in the projects of this poor neighborhood in the East area of the capital. The second is already being produced and explores different forms of experience of preparing to live in Tiradentes City. The experience of the members of the self-managed Paulo Freire task force, which is completing the construction of a building in the neighborhood, where 100 families would live, between late 2008 and early 2009. The third explores different forms of the experience of living in slums and squatter settlements in Tiradentes City, i.e., in most cases, in illegal and irregular settlements. We will deal, in the latter case, with people who have lived for a short time in the site, without high expectations about their stay.

Team:

Francisco Toledo

Marcos Yoshisaki

CMS Audiovisual - Coordination: Henri Arraes Gervaiseau

The CEM Audiovisual brings together professionals (technicians and students and professors in graduate and undergraduate programs) interested in exploring the interface between audiovisual production and the Social Science research. Created in 2003, it has been turning out documentary films and videos ever since. It focuses on themes related to the metropolis, not only CEM work but also products of other Social Science investigators describing significant urban reality issues in this country. Between 2003 and 2005, CEM Audiovisual produced one feature and three short films.

Entretempos

Directed by Henri Arraes Gervaiseau, professor at ECA-USP, and produced by CEM. The documentary aims to recover, in a poetic way, the trajectory of the collective members of the Association of Mutirão Paulo Freire, which in the course of ten years built, in a system of self-managed collective effort, in partnership with an NGO, a housing estate for hundred families in Cidade Tiradentes, in the east side of Sao Paulo.

Watch the video: here

Em Trânsito (In Traffic)

Directed by Henri Arraes Gervaiseau, professor of the University of São Paulo’s School of Communication and Arts, and coordinator of the CMS Audiovisual Core, this movie shows brings to the audience a vision of São Paulo dwellers and the time they spend in traffic and on public transport, focusing on the impact of this experience on other aspects of their lives.

Watch the video: here

Moro Na Tiradentes

Directed by Henri Gervaiseau and Cláudia Mesquita, Moro Na Tiradentes explores different ways of approaching the experience of living in one of the largest housing projects in Brazil, located in the extreme east of the city of São Paulo, in the district called Cidade Tiradentes A dip in São Paulo neighborhood of Cidade Tiradentes, beyond stigmas of helplessness and violence.

Watch the video: here

Moda do Centro (Downtown Fashion)

Directed by Martha Nehring, shows the importance of the ethnic cycles to the textile industry in the Bom Retiro neighborhood of São Paulo.

Watch the video: here

5 mulheres de Paraisopolis (5 Women from Paraisopolis)

Directed by Claudia Mesquita, pictures life in the Paraisopolis’ favela (shanty town) from a feminine perspective.

Watch the video: here

Each production team brings a specific achievement that has varied in the content of the research agenda in the film.

To download trailers of the documentary, click on the links. The videos are on formato.wmv and are best viewed in Windows Media Player software.