Social Class Origin Research Articles

Social class origin and income variations among degree holders: evidence from Italy

Social class origin and income variations among degree holders: evidence from Italy

Social Class Origin and Its Enduring Effects on Securing Idiosyncratic Deals at Work

Social Class Origin and Its Enduring Effects on Securing Idiosyncratic Deals at Work

Crossing the borders of social class: Social mobility as translational experience

ABSTRACT This article suggests that we might conceive of the experience of upward social mobility as a form of translational experience and view the socially mobile individual as both translatum and translator. Acknowledging that the experience of social mobility varies enormously in its specificity, the article’s temporal focus is on upward social mobility in Britain since the expansion of higher education in the early 1990s. It draws on the author’s own experience of social mobility and on the memoirs Hungry by Grace Dent (2021), Respectable by Lynsey Hanley (2017), and People Like Us (2020) by Hashi Mohamed, and relates the socially mobile self to the phenomenon of textual translation. It also theorises the ‘return’ – post-translation communication with the ‘source culture’ or social class of origin – and the process of back-and-forth translation in which socially mobile individuals are constantly engaged.

Is Geographical Mobility Beneficial? The Impact of the South-to-North Internal Migration on Occupational Achievement in Italy

Geographical mobility plays a crucial role in shaping demographic and social change, yet few studies have examined its impact on occupational success and the transmission of social inequality across generations. This study aims to investigate the effect of internal migration on occupational status in Italy, exploring whether men and women experience a benefit or disadvantage from South-to-North migration, and if this effect is influenced by family status and social class of origin. The research is based on the Italian Household Longitudinal Survey and utilizes a set of fixed effects linear regression panel models combined with Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM). Results show that only men benefit from migration, while women experience a disadvantage, which increases when they move after union formation and the transition to parenthood. Furthermore, the impact of geographical mobility on occupational status varies based on social class of origin only for men, with those from higher classes experiencing a much greater migration benefit than those from medium and lower classes. These findings demonstrate that geographical mobility serves as an additional source of advantage for individuals from higher social classes. The positive effect on male occupational success compounds with family-related benefits, further widening social disparities between individuals in different social strata.

Social Class Origins and Entrepreneurship

Social Class Origins and Entrepreneurship

The paradoxical role of social class background in the educational and labour market outcomes of the children of immigrants in the UK.

Despite predominantly lower social class origins, the second generation of established immigrant groups in the UK are now attaining high levels of education. However, they continue to experience poorer labour market outcomes than the majority population. These worse outcomes are often attributed in part to their disadvantaged origins, which do not, by contrast, appear to constrain their educational success. This paper engages with this paradox. We discuss potential mechanisms for second-generation educational success and how far we might expect these to be replicated in labour market outcomes. We substantiate our discussion with new empirical analysis. Drawing on a unique longitudinal study of England and Wales spanning 40years and encompassing one per cent of the population, we present evidence on the educational and labour market outcomes of the second generation of four groups of immigrants and the white British majority, controlling for multiple measures of social origins. We demonstrate that second-generation men and women's educational advantage is only partially reflected in the labour market. We reflect on the implications of our findings for future research.

Intersectional income inequality: a longitudinal study of class and gender effects on careers

ABSTRACT Intersectional income inequalities based on social class and gender remain under-researched. This paper examines the development of the gender pay gap, the class pay gap, and the intersectional gender-class pay gap over time. Drawing on a longitudinal survey of the first ten career years of business school graduates, our results show that both social class origin and gender lead to income disparities that increase over time. In addition, results of the intersectional gender-class pay gap analyses provide a nuanced picture of these growing income inequalities as we find evidence for a growing class pay gap among men but not among women. This indicates that while men benefit more from higher-class backgrounds than women, effects of lower-class backgrounds are less severe for women than for men. Thereby, our findings underscore the importance of intersectional analyses in career studies.

Unpacking (un)conscious social class bias in faculty hiring processes in Chile: PhD prestige granting university and network

AbstractSocial class of origin is apparently an imperceptible attribute among doctorate holders seeking academic jobs. Yet, recent studies in different countries reveal that social class of origin may still be influencing the chances of PhD holders from low social class being hired at prestigious universities. Drawing from the theory of social and cultural reproduction, normative ‘fair’ academic hirings frameworks, and qualitative evidence collected in Chile, this research identifies the mechanisms that trigger (un)conscious social class bias in the stages of recruitment and selection of candidates in seven academic departments in economics and industrial engineering (46 interviews). Findings did not prove explicit classism manifestations, but practices of inclusion/exclusion of candidates based on the prestige of PhD‐granting universities, and networks. These reproduce the relationship between social class and unequal chances of being connected to prestigious universities. Recommendations to address (un)conscious social class bias in academic hiring are discussed.

Inequality and Entrepreneurial Agency: How Social Class Origins Affect Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

Entrepreneurial agency—the individual power to change environments—is central to entrepreneurship research. Yet, from a social inequality perspective, beliefs in an entrepreneurial agency might differ based on the social class environments individuals are born into. Drawing on social cognitive theories, our findings across three data sets among students from Germany and entrepreneurs from the United States indicate that social class origins are associated with entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) beliefs in adulthood. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we find that students’ early entrepreneurial experiences in education and practice are indicative of reproducing the class gap in ESE. When individuals collect mastery experiences such as social mobility or entrepreneurial success, their lower social class origins turn out to be associated with enhanced entrepreneurial agency beliefs. We discuss the implications for further research on social class, inequality, and entrepreneurship.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Family Dissolution: How it Varies by Social Class Origin and Birth Cohort

Children from separated parents are more likely to also experience the dissolution of their own union. For many children, parental separation thus is an adverse life course event that follows them into adulthood. We examine whether parents’ social class mitigates this adversity and weakens the intergenerational transmission of family dissolution for children from advantaged class origins. This is the case if separated parents with more resources are able to offer better living conditions to their children and keep them longer in education, reducing children’s incentives for early home-leaving, early cohabitation and early childbearing—three life course choices that increase the risk of later family dissolution. We analyse the existence of such a compensatory class advantage for three birth cohorts in the UK. Based on 38,000 life histories from two panel surveys (BHPS, UKLHS), we find a strong link between parents’ family dissolution and offspring’s family dissolution, and a reversal in the effect of parents’ class on children’s risk of family dissolution over the three birth cohorts of the Silent Generation (1925–45), Baby Boomers (1946–64) and Generation X (1965–79). However, there is no evidence that the intergenerational transmission of union dissolution is mitigated by a compensatory class effect for offspring from more advantaged class origins. Regardless of class origin, parents’ union dissolution is associated with a much larger risk of union dissolution among their offspring.

Where the past meets the present: Upward mobility, environmental stimuli, and CEOs’ investment in corporate social responsibility

Does the experience of upward mobility impact top executives’ investment in socially conscious initiatives at the firm level? Despite early theorizing, much remains unknown about how top executives’ experiences with upward mobility impact their decisions related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this study, we focus on chief executive officers (CEOs) from lower social class origins, who represent the most extreme case of upward mobility among their peers, and examine the effects of their background on the likelihood of helping others. Drawing on upper echelons and social class literature, we theorize that top executives’ past—where they come from (i.e. social class origins) and what they have experienced on their climb to the top—influences CSR decisions. We argue that CEOs from lower social class origins develop simultaneous, but at times competing, habitus that influence them to invest more in community-centric but less in employee-centric CSR than their counterparts from middle and upper social class backgrounds. Drawing on trait activation theory, we also predict the moderating influence of the immediate environmental context, namely local levels of poverty and prosperity. Overall, our results support our hypotheses and provide a complex picture of how upward mobility, and its attendant tensions, can affect executive values and CSR.

Social class and approaches to shaping educational expectations.

Scholars have recognized young people's educational expectations as a key factor in predicting educational outcomes, but few studies have attempted a comprehensive classification of how young people's educational expectations are shaped. In this article, I outline a typology of how young people from different social class origins shape their educational expectations. Drawing on 100 interviews with 15-year-olds, I find two underlying dimensions in young people's accounts of their educational expectations: how risk aware they are and how goal oriented they are. These dimensions translate into a heuristic model for understanding the structure of young people's educational expectations. I identify four major approaches to shaping educational expectations - the confident, the determined, the explorative, and the anxious - and show how these approaches connect to the young people's class origin. The typology of approaches offers a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms that lead young people to shape their expectations in qualitatively different ways.

Original, Radical, and Managerial: Thorstein Veblen and Social Class Origins of American Institutionalism

Bu çalışma, ABD'de Yaldızlı Çağ (Gilded Age) olarak bilinen 1800'lerin son çeyreği ile 20. yüzyılın ilk yarısına – İlerici Dönem (Progressive Era) ve Yeni Düzen (New Deal) yıllarına – odaklanmaktadır. Bunu yaparken, makale ilk başta Amerikan kurumsalcılarının bazı önde gelen isimlerinin yoğun şekilde etkilendikleri Alman Tarihsel Okulu ve Amerikan Siyasal İktisat Okulu (ya da Amerikan Okulu) ile ilişkilerine bakıyor. Yaygın görüş kurumsalcılığın neoklasik iktisadın hegemonyasına direnebilmiş ve Amerikan üniversitelerindeki iktisat bölümlerinde önemli bir ağırlık elde edebilmiş olduğu yönündedir. Dolayısıyla, çalışmanın ilk iki bölümü kurumsalcılığın, ‘Amerikan’, ‘orijinal’ ve ‘radikal’ olarak anılan unsurlarına odaklanıyor. Yazının asli meselesi ise şu: “Veblen gibi bir figürün Amerikan kapitalizmine karşı radikal görüşleri ve sonradan görme zenginlerin gösterişçi yaşam tarzlarıyla alay eden iğneleyici yazılarıyla özdeş Kurumsalcı/Evrimselci iktisat, ABD akademisi, araştırma enstitüleri ve bürokrasisinde ‘neoklasik teoriyle eşit önemde’ görülüp bir tür ana akım konumunu nasıl edebildi?” Bu bağlamda, çalışma, Amerikan Kurumsalcılığının şekillendiği ve etkili olduğu üç farklı kesite odaklanıyor. Bunların ilk ikisinde (1) Alman Tarihsel Okulu'nun Almanya’da tahsil görmüş ‘yeni nesil’ iktisatçılar aracılığıyla yarattığı etki, (2) 20. yüzyılın ortalarında artık çoktan unutulmuş Amerikan Okulu’nun korumacı/milliyetçi doktrinlerinin etkisi üzerine odaklanılıyor. Yazı, son olarak (3) Amerikan kurumsalcılığının toplumsal sınıf kökenlerini açığa çıkaran 1930’lardaki ‘yönetimsel devrim’ tartışmalarına uzanıyor. Burada Amerikan kurumsalcılarının, Yeni Düzen yıllarında yükselen ‘yönetimsel sınıfın’ ilerici unsurlarını temsil eden ‘organik aydınları’ olduğu ve geleneğin ABD'deki başarısının arkasında bu organik ilişkinin bulunduğu iddia ediliyor.

Social Class and Entrepreneur Resilience: How Entrepreneurs Respond to Institutional Deterioration

There has been a growing recognition of the role of social class in the field of entrepreneurship, and the prevailing view highlights that entrepreneurs from lower social classes will encounter more material deficiencies and cognitive constraints than those from higher social classes in their business. In this study, drawing on insights from social psychology, we argue that those lower-class entrepreneurs could also be more resilient in dealing with adverse situations. Specifically, our empirical analysis of Chinese private entrepreneurs reveals that while entrepreneurs with lower social class origins tends to invest less in long-term development activities (e.g., innovation and employee training), when encountering a deteriorating institutional environment that generally discourages long-term investment, lower-class entrepreneurs show greater resilience in embracing the challenges and the perseverance of their investments compared to those from higher social classes. This study bridges research on social class and entrepreneur resilience to reveal the dual impact of individuals’ social class origins in entrepreneurship.

Career Agency in Intersecting Gender-Class Structures

The unique challenges and experiences of women with regard to their social class backgrounds have largely been overlooked in the study of careers. To shed new light on the role that intersectionality plays in professional careers of women with different social class origins, this study uses a critical realist approach in the analysis of biographic-narrative interviews with 46 women. Results reveal how structural factors affect the women’s agency in their life and career paths as well as how they shape the reproduction and elaboration of gender-class structures. The study contributes to current discourses on women’s career agency and the development of intersectionality theory by suggesting a theoretical model of career agency in intersecting gender-class structures. The model highlights mechanisms that influence women’s careers and thereby deepens the understanding of how different dimensions of gender and social class interact to influence careers of women with different social class backgrounds.

Social Class Differences in Job Search Process and Employment Success

This study examines the impact of a job seeker’s social class on their job search and employment success. We draw from a social cognitive perspective of social class to propose two dynamic mechanisms during job search process through which social class influences employment outcomes: goal persistence and compromising strategy. We followed 126 new job market entrants for up to 12 weeks when they searched for their first full-time jobs. We found that parent education was positively related to goal persistence, such that job search salary goal was more likely to fluctuate as perceived job search progress changed among job seekers whose parents had lower education whereas there was no significant relationship between perceived job search progress and job search salary goal among those whose parents had higher education. Goal persistence was, in turn, positively related to the number of job offers received. We also found that family income was negatively related to using a compromising strategy when making decisions about opportunities received in the job search process, such that job seekers from richer (versus poorer) families were less likely to accept job opportunities that they were dissatisfied with. Job seekers who used less compromising strategy were more likely to be employed in a satisfying job rather than stay unemployed until the end of their job search. Overall, our findings suggested that social class origins could influence new job market entrants’ employment success through their social cognitive tendencies during the job search process.

A Dynamic Relationship Between CEO Social Class Origin, Career Experience, and Employee Treatment

We argue that CEOs from higher social classes tend to treat employees in a transactional manner compared to CEOs from lower social classes who relationally treat employees. We attribute this difference to agentic vs. contextual beliefs that individuals from different social classes adopt due to the circumstances of their upbringing. We further argue that elite education, career hardship, entry into a distressed labor market, and an insider career trajectory erode agentic thinking, strengthen communal thinking and thus moderate the relationship between CEO social class origin and employee treatment. We rely on a survey sample from 135 CEOs from S&P 1500 firms and 403 firm-year observations to test our predictions for 2007 to 2020 for supportive employee treatment. We additionally test callous employee treatment with 87 firm-year observations during the Covid-19 event period of 2020. We find our hypotheses supported.

Battle of the Classes. Social Class and Work Status in Determining Women Director Appointments

The literature on women on board of directors provides limited insights on how the social class origins of the women executives influence their selection on corporate boards and their career trajectories. Gender research in management has narrowly focused on the disadvantages women experience in the workplace. However, women's unique and complex social identities with multiple group memberships, such as social class and work status, can lead to paradoxical experiences in the workplace, with women experiencing both advantages and disadvantages. To shed new light on the role of multiple identities for women executives in gaining board directorship, I leverage the social classification based on “caste” in India. I develop a theoretical model to show the influence of social class, work status, and social class mobility in director selection market for women executives. The model predicts four distinct profiles of women executives and their outcomes in the director labor market. By using the intersectionality of social class and work status, I propose that women executives with high work status and low social class will be able to display their authority and dominance in the workplace and craft credible professional executive images at work, and hence will be buffered from the stereotypic bias of incompetence due to gender and social class. In contrast, for women directors with high social class but low work status, high social class will mitigate the adverse effects of low work status by signaling their high social capital through their homophilic kinship ties. Moreover, the director appointments of women executives with lower work status will allow upward mobility of these director profiles and improve their future career prospects in the corporate elite.

The social origins and schooling of a scientific elite: Fellows of the royal society born from 1900.

We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows' social class origins and type of secondary schooling. From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come largely from more advantaged class backgrounds, it is professional rather than business or managerial families that are the main source of their recruitment—and, increasingly, such families where a parent is in a STEM occupation. Recruitment from working‐class families has declined and for most recent birth cohorts almost ceased. The scientific elite is thus now more homogeneous as regards the social origins of its members than it was in the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, little change is evident in the secondary schooling of Fellows. In all birth cohorts, between two‐fifths and a half of all—and over two‐thirds of those from more advantaged class backgrounds—were privately educated, although the proportion attending Clarendon schools would seem low compared with that in other elites. A further finding of interest is that some variation in Fellows' class origins and type of schooling exists across different research fields.

Education and Social Fluidity: A Reweighting Approach

Although sociologists have devoted considerable attention to studying the role of education in intergenerational social class mobility using log-linear models for contingency tables, indings in this literature are not free from rescaling or non-collapsibility bias caused by adjusting for education in these models. Drawing on the methodological literature on inverse probability reweighting, I present a straightforward standardization approach free from this bias. The approach reweighs in an initial step the mobility table cell frequencies to create a pseudo-population in which social class origins and education are independent of each other, after which one can apply any loglinear model to the reweighted mobility table. In contrast to the Karlson-Holm-Breen method, the approach yields coefficients that are comparable across different studies because they are unaffected by education's predictive power of class destinations. Moreover, the approach is easily applied to models for various types of mobility patterns such as those in the core model of fluidity; it yields a single summary measure of overall mediation; and it can incorporate several mediating variables, allowing researchers to control for additional merit proxies such as cognitive skills or potential confounders such as age. I illustrate the utility of the approach in four empirical examples.