in 1998, the ibge, within its preparation for the 2000 census, experimentally introduced a question about "origem" (ancestry) in its "pesquisa mensal de emprego" (monthly employment research), in order to test the viability of introducing that variable in the census. this research interviewed about 90,000 people in six metropolitan regions (são paulo, rio de janeiro, porto alegre, belo horizonte, salvador, and recife).