OF WHICH CENTER AND PERIPHERY ARE WE TALKING?

Abstract This study is a comparative analysis of changes in levels of employment and income in the metropolitan areas of labor markets (RMs) of Northeast and Southeast. The populations of workers were discriminated between migrants and non-migrants, residents in the cores and peripheries of metropolitan areas of Fortaleza and Recife compared with residents of metropolitan regions of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro between 2000 and 2010, according to the level of income and the condition of poverty or extreme poverty. The results indicate improvement of the remuneration of migrant and non-migrant workers, despite the acceleration of the urbanization of the last decades, there is evidence of higher occupational integration of the two population groups, with the supremacy of migrants on the non-migrants in terms of median income of work according to census data. The perspective that occupation and income expansion might bring benefits to the metropolitan outskirts residence standards should not be neglected in further analysis, which may explore other dwelling features, particularly if an income gain steadiness sustained by growing economic scenarios should be observed along the current decade.