better living and working conditions in cities, on the other hand, as well as the inability of urban centers to provide occupations and jobs for all.In fact, social mobility drew the attention of social scientists, as opposed to the profile of income distribution. Orthodox and conservative researchers tried to minimize the visible signs of social inequality by indicating that, despite these adverse conditions, many Americans managed to climb up the social ladder by means of education, work and professional performance.On the other hand, the more left-wing heterodox did admit that many Americans were able to improve their working, income and living conditions, but the majority was still stuck to the limited job openings and low-skilled jobs of the occupational structure that prevailed in the market[4].In fact, it was more than a matter of perspective, of how to look at social reality. Conservatives began to highlight those who improved their lives, while the heterodox diagnosed the weight of those who were unable to move from the position they had achieved, having to endure worse working and living conditions. The former sought to defend the social and economic status quo; the latter questioned the systems foundations and conditions.In Brazil, studies on income distribution began to emerge in the late 1960s, when the first results of the 1960 Census were released by the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE). The debate that followed was intense and, as was to be expected, full of ideological hues. The orthodox on one side and the heterodox on the other; the former in one way or another closer to American sociology, the latter, in opposition, following more leftiststructuralist streams, notably Latin American.There was no marked distinction between the income distribution and social mobility approaches discussed in the American and European academies and what came to predominate in Brazil. First led by the orthodox, the core question was to show that, although income inequality had been diagnosed in the census data, an internal movement in the market structure allowed workers to climb the social ladder. According to them, social mobility was the highlight, or the most important fact, despite the uneven distributional profile.In other words, even in an unequal society it was possible to discover groups that were able to move up in the structure of the labor market. Accompanied by proper investigation instruments, such as time analysis based on the economic and social situations of parents and children, and compared at certain time intervals, the social status conditions of both were measured through statistics composed mostly by education, occupation and income data.The results found in some studies confirmed that portions of the groups were, in fact, able to improve their educational level, occupation hierarchy and income level[5]. The orthodox discourse could be summarized as follows: the income situation is not good, but there are concrete chances of improvement. While most are poorly located in the income pyramid, they continued and justified, there are occupational groups that have better income levels (wages for employees and payments for self-employed service providers).Brazil's growing economy in the 1970s brought economic expansion to industries,