Social Inequalities in Careers: Effects of Social Class Origin and Gender on Career Success

Abstract

Even though awareness for unequal opportunities in societies is rising, career research continues to have blind spots regarding issues of inequality. While there are several studies that investigate the gender pay gap, only few look at the effects of social class origin and even fewer at the intersectional interplay of gender and class origin. This paper explores core factors in connection with inequality, i.e. social class origin, gender and their intersectionality, emphasizing their effects on career success over time. Data used in this study stem from two cohorts of a longitudinal survey among Austrian business school graduates graduating around 2000 and 2010. Our results suggest that social class origin and gender both influence objective career success (i.e. income) over time, but do not appear to influence subjective career success (i.e. ascribed career success) to the same extent. Regarding the intersectionality effect of social class origin and gender, results differ markedly between the two cohorts. Our findings not only add to the broad bodies of gender and class inequality literature, but also provide insight into effects of inequality factors on careers over time.