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The Class Ceiling: Why It Pays to Be Privileged
Traditional Chinese edition of The Class Why it Pays to be Privileged
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First published January 1, 2019
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August 25, 2020
Having been the first in my family to go to university and coming from a working class background means I find books like this endlessly fascinating. They help me understand some of the missteps and dead-end pathways I’ve wandered down in life. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve enjoyed some of these very much – but I’ve often had a sense of things happening in my life where I’ve been swept along, rather than my having the kind of control over the direction I was taking that is clear other people have had a much stronger sense of. At first, I assumed this was due to my ‘not having a vocation’ – whatever that might mean. However, the idea of having a vocation now just seems to beg the question.
As they say in this book, the impact of social class on our lives is sticky – and that is something of a problem with how the impact of social class on social mobility is generally defined. Social mobility looks at where you end up. But often the path you take in getting there depends on where you started. The strange side tracks you are compelled to take are often due to simply not having your hand held as others do. The discussion in this book on how people are mentored is fascinating on its own. Working class people often do not have a map of the terrain they find themselves in that is anything like the maps those from other social classes do. They are also much more likely to believe that success and failure is due to ‘natural ability’, and so to give up when things don’t appear to come naturally to us – ironically enough, this is often used against us, since a lifetime of upper class training is designed to make certain dispositions appear completely ‘natural’, even to those who have been trained into them.
This book discusses these issues using some key ideas from Bourdieu. But for most of the book you wouldn’t be able to tell, unless you had a background in Bourdieu’s sociology. Bourdieu focuses on a couple of key ideas in discussing how social class impacts upon people’s ability to move between social classes. One is that there many forms of capital. Not only do people have money – and more money is generally a good thing – but there are other forms of capital too. A couple of the major ones are cultural capital (knowing which shoes to wear to a job interview, knowing when they ask ‘where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’ not to say ‘still in lockdown…’) and social capital – having friends and family and other connections on your side who can provide shortcuts and introductions. Another is habitus – your embodied dispositions. The point being, as the authors explain, that upper class people have dispositions that make them behave like a fish in water when they are brought into an elite job, while others have dispositions that always make them feel out of place. The authors refer to this with a really nice metaphor I hadn’t heard before – the glass slipper. You know, Cinderella’s shoes were a perfect fit for her, but her sisters needed to cut off their toes or their heels to make the shoe fit. The point the authors are making is that if you have the right dispositions, then you can walk around in the shoes as if you were born into them. If not, you hobble and limp. As much as you might try to cover that up, it is always going to remain obvious you are anything but comfortable.
The best of this was where the born-to-rule people in elite jobs pointed out the flaws in the research done by the authors. For example, one asked how they didn’t know that the working class people weren’t, in fact, inherently less intelligent than their upper class peers? This is an inevitable question, since our society views itself as a meritocracy, and so if you win, you deserved to win, and if you lose, it serves you right. The point is that the book is based on extensive data collected by the UK government into the social origin of people and their current occupation. It shows that even when working class people go to the best universities and get the same degrees as upper class people, they still end up with less remuneration. And the pay gap isn’t small. This book seeks to understand why that might be the case. In part it is explained by the fact upper class people speak in a code that isn’t at all easy to copy, or to even understand, if you have not been raised within that environment. One of the case studies involved people who worked at a television studio. The upper class employees were mostly gathered in a single section, those who commissioned programs, and sometimes they would drop references to classical mythology or American literature, that the working class employees basically had no means to understand. When the sociologists were doing their report back on this, one of the managers said that it was a bit rich people from a university complaining that their staff were referencing things they had learned in their own university studies.
Yeah, but… it isn’t at all clear that classic references are particularly necessary when your job is to commission game shows. But if you don’t know who Actaeon was or why he ought to be afraid of his own dogs, well, you are going to feel alienated if the punchline to a joke requires you to know exactly that.
Something that was particularly interesting in this was that there were often fewer hurdles or barriers to working class people moving up the ladder if the job required mostly technical prowess – so, there were more successful working class engineers than accountants, for example. The book discusses an architectural firm where there was no discernible class ceiling. However, the authors make the point that in accounting, where there is a class ceiling, this differentiation only becomes evident when staff move beyond technical prowess and then have to progress on skills beyond their technical abilities. In these cases, the right accent, wearing the right suit, having the right taste in music, and laughing at jokes about Actaeon, provide a tailwind to your career that isn’t always obvious to either yourself or to those around you.
The book also looks at actors and how having the right parents is a distinct advantage in having that as a career too. Acting work is precarious at the best of times, where opportunities can arrive almost at random. Being able to drop everything to take those opportunities is easier if you can rely upon the bank of mum and dad. Also, Received Pronunciation is the ‘standard’ or base accent in the UK, you might never have to put on a Yorkshire accent, but it would be hard to be an actor in the UK and not have to do RP – if RP isn’t your normal accent, then it becomes yet another instance of fitting your foot, one way or another, into the glass slipper.
I really enjoyed this book – it explains in very simple language complex ideas around the sociology of class, and it does so in ways that make the hurdles working class background people face apparent. It also does so in a way that shows the stickiness of one’s background, how it remains with you, even if you do get to move up the corporate ladder. So that unlike the upper class person with the wind at their back, it can feel as if you are always walking into the wind.
As they say in this book, the impact of social class on our lives is sticky – and that is something of a problem with how the impact of social class on social mobility is generally defined. Social mobility looks at where you end up. But often the path you take in getting there depends on where you started. The strange side tracks you are compelled to take are often due to simply not having your hand held as others do. The discussion in this book on how people are mentored is fascinating on its own. Working class people often do not have a map of the terrain they find themselves in that is anything like the maps those from other social classes do. They are also much more likely to believe that success and failure is due to ‘natural ability’, and so to give up when things don’t appear to come naturally to us – ironically enough, this is often used against us, since a lifetime of upper class training is designed to make certain dispositions appear completely ‘natural’, even to those who have been trained into them.
This book discusses these issues using some key ideas from Bourdieu. But for most of the book you wouldn’t be able to tell, unless you had a background in Bourdieu’s sociology. Bourdieu focuses on a couple of key ideas in discussing how social class impacts upon people’s ability to move between social classes. One is that there many forms of capital. Not only do people have money – and more money is generally a good thing – but there are other forms of capital too. A couple of the major ones are cultural capital (knowing which shoes to wear to a job interview, knowing when they ask ‘where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’ not to say ‘still in lockdown…’) and social capital – having friends and family and other connections on your side who can provide shortcuts and introductions. Another is habitus – your embodied dispositions. The point being, as the authors explain, that upper class people have dispositions that make them behave like a fish in water when they are brought into an elite job, while others have dispositions that always make them feel out of place. The authors refer to this with a really nice metaphor I hadn’t heard before – the glass slipper. You know, Cinderella’s shoes were a perfect fit for her, but her sisters needed to cut off their toes or their heels to make the shoe fit. The point the authors are making is that if you have the right dispositions, then you can walk around in the shoes as if you were born into them. If not, you hobble and limp. As much as you might try to cover that up, it is always going to remain obvious you are anything but comfortable.
The best of this was where the born-to-rule people in elite jobs pointed out the flaws in the research done by the authors. For example, one asked how they didn’t know that the working class people weren’t, in fact, inherently less intelligent than their upper class peers? This is an inevitable question, since our society views itself as a meritocracy, and so if you win, you deserved to win, and if you lose, it serves you right. The point is that the book is based on extensive data collected by the UK government into the social origin of people and their current occupation. It shows that even when working class people go to the best universities and get the same degrees as upper class people, they still end up with less remuneration. And the pay gap isn’t small. This book seeks to understand why that might be the case. In part it is explained by the fact upper class people speak in a code that isn’t at all easy to copy, or to even understand, if you have not been raised within that environment. One of the case studies involved people who worked at a television studio. The upper class employees were mostly gathered in a single section, those who commissioned programs, and sometimes they would drop references to classical mythology or American literature, that the working class employees basically had no means to understand. When the sociologists were doing their report back on this, one of the managers said that it was a bit rich people from a university complaining that their staff were referencing things they had learned in their own university studies.
Yeah, but… it isn’t at all clear that classic references are particularly necessary when your job is to commission game shows. But if you don’t know who Actaeon was or why he ought to be afraid of his own dogs, well, you are going to feel alienated if the punchline to a joke requires you to know exactly that.
Something that was particularly interesting in this was that there were often fewer hurdles or barriers to working class people moving up the ladder if the job required mostly technical prowess – so, there were more successful working class engineers than accountants, for example. The book discusses an architectural firm where there was no discernible class ceiling. However, the authors make the point that in accounting, where there is a class ceiling, this differentiation only becomes evident when staff move beyond technical prowess and then have to progress on skills beyond their technical abilities. In these cases, the right accent, wearing the right suit, having the right taste in music, and laughing at jokes about Actaeon, provide a tailwind to your career that isn’t always obvious to either yourself or to those around you.
The book also looks at actors and how having the right parents is a distinct advantage in having that as a career too. Acting work is precarious at the best of times, where opportunities can arrive almost at random. Being able to drop everything to take those opportunities is easier if you can rely upon the bank of mum and dad. Also, Received Pronunciation is the ‘standard’ or base accent in the UK, you might never have to put on a Yorkshire accent, but it would be hard to be an actor in the UK and not have to do RP – if RP isn’t your normal accent, then it becomes yet another instance of fitting your foot, one way or another, into the glass slipper.
I really enjoyed this book – it explains in very simple language complex ideas around the sociology of class, and it does so in ways that make the hurdles working class background people face apparent. It also does so in a way that shows the stickiness of one’s background, how it remains with you, even if you do get to move up the corporate ladder. So that unlike the upper class person with the wind at their back, it can feel as if you are always walking into the wind.
August 19, 2022
We hope that over the course of this book we have made our key findings eminently clear: that people from working- class backgrounds earn less in top jobs than their privileged colleagues; that this can only be partially attributed to conventional measures of ‘merit’; and that more powerful drivers are rooted in the misrecognition of classed self- presentation as ‘talent’, work cultures historically shaped by the privileged, the affordances of the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’, and sponsored mobility premised on class- cultural homophily.
This is a well-written book on social mobility, and 'the class ceiling' in the workplace, with an impressive combination of case studies and academic rigour, including some ground-breaking statistical analysis.
If you want the key messages in less than 10 minutes, the authors are academics not TEDtalkers, but this video is worth a watch: How do we break the class ceiling? | LSE Festival Shorts 2022
Their main measure of social mobility is based on the international standard of the main parental income provider's occupation at age 14.
The statistical rigour of their analysis, based on a rich data source of the ONS's Labour Force Survey, shows that, contrary to the pre-conception of many interviewees, measures of merit have little to do with an observed privilige pay gap. They control for measures linked to privilege - education; regions of the UK (London pay is higher but getting even on the rental ladder for graduates often requires support from the bank of Mum and Dad); and 'occupational sorting' (people's own choice of occupation - the children of doctors are 24 times as likely to become doctors as the general public). These all explain a material pay gap but only c. half of that observed - the rest, they suspect, comes from cultural factors within the workplace.
They also control for demographic factors and, interestingly if depressingly, find evidence of intersectionality white women and people of colour from working- class backgrounds face a very clear ‘double disadvantage’ in earnings, which can be multiplicative rather than simply additive.
From an academic point of view they draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and, compared to previous studies, look at progress through the workplace rather than just at the point of entry.
At root a Bourdieusian lens insists that our class background is defined by our parents’ stocks of three primary forms of capital: economic capital (wealth and income), cultural capital (educational credentials and the possession of legitimate knowledge, skills and tastes) and social capital (valuable social connections and friendships).
And while economic and social capital are easier to observe...
In contrast, it is much harder to detect the intergenerational transfer of cultural capital, and therefore we tend to (mis) read it in everyday life as a signal of a person’s ‘natural’ sophistication (that they have an ‘an eye for fashion’ or a ‘sophisticated palate’, for example), or even their innate intelligence.
Within the work place they, drawing on others work, uses terms such as the glass slipper and looking glass (I couldn't help feel 'class slipper' and 'looking glass') would have been better:
The glass slipper metaphor, developed by American scholar Karen Ashcraft, captures the way in which particular occupations come to appear possessed of inherent characteristics that have little to do with the actual work yet render them a natural fit for some and a stretch, if not an impossibility, for others
...
This, then, is often [leads to ] a thinly veiled ‘looking- glass’ version of ‘merit’, of demonstrating an ability to embody relatively arbitrary (and highly classed) behavioural norms, or cultural preferences and tastes, that then function as signals of suitability among senior decision- makers.
The main and most accessible of the book illustrates these concepts by three case studies, and interviews with individuals (both from professional and working-class backgrounds and at senior and more junior levels) in four areas:
We draw on case studies of three (anonymised) organisations– a national television broadcaster, 6TV; a large multinational accounting firm, Turner Clarke; and an architecture practice, Coopers– as well as an examination of self- employed actors.
Now I can see why they were anonymised, because they are fairly hard hitting. E.g. progress in the most well paid parts of '6TV', the commissioning team, certainly suffers from a requirement to fit in with a certain type of 'cultured' behaviour, even when discussing the next series of Big Brother. And the Big 4 accounting firm 'Turner Clarke' suffers from an over-reliance on marking out even relatively young recruits as to whether they are or aren't 'partner material', which has little to do with merit in their current role and much more to do with perceived 'fit' and 'polish' (something that was very visible to me in my time at PwC in the 1990s).
Although what I find odd is that having anonymised the firms they then drop helpful clues to help you identify them! Turner Clarke is one of the big 4, and in case 4 is too many to choose from the authors helpfully tell us it isn't KPMG - and from other 'clues' I strongly suspect it is Deloitte. I don't know the name of a single firm of architects but I suspect the clues are there for people who do know the sector. And as for '6TV' the chapter on them opens with a gratuitously detailed description of their HQ:
6TV does not wear its visual identity lightly. Occupying a corner plot in an otherwise quiet and unassuming district of North London, its large purpose- built headquarters jut out loudly, dominating the surrounding built environment. The building itself, clad in powder- grey aluminium and glass, is an outlandish, futuristic creation. Arranged in a distinct L- shape, it addresses the corner of the street with a curved connecting space framed by two ‘satellite towers’. In the middle is the entrance, the most dramatic aspect of the design. A stepped ramp leads from the street over a glass bridge towards a dramatic concave glazed wall.
The only thing they omit to mention is the large "4" outside theChannel 4 :6TV office!
To be fair, Channel 4 have subsequently gone public with their involvement and actually all credit to them and the other firms involved - the first part of tackling any issues is an honest assessment that you have an issue.
And in terms of the authors' recommendations, prepared with the help of The Bridge Group () you can find them here.
The summary list:
1. Measure and monitor class background
2. Find out whether your organisation has a class ceiling
3. Start a conversation about talent
4. Take intersectionality seriously
5. Publish social mobility data
6. Ban unpaid and unadvertised internships
7. Engage middle and senior managers
8. Formalise the culture of informal sponsorship
9. Support those who want it
10. Lobby for legal protection
Finally for those like me in financial and professional services in the UK, an important new report came out this week from the Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce of the City of London: Building The Baseline: Breaking the Class Barrier
Strongly recommended to read.
This is a well-written book on social mobility, and 'the class ceiling' in the workplace, with an impressive combination of case studies and academic rigour, including some ground-breaking statistical analysis.
If you want the key messages in less than 10 minutes, the authors are academics not TEDtalkers, but this video is worth a watch: How do we break the class ceiling? | LSE Festival Shorts 2022
Their main measure of social mobility is based on the international standard of the main parental income provider's occupation at age 14.
The statistical rigour of their analysis, based on a rich data source of the ONS's Labour Force Survey, shows that, contrary to the pre-conception of many interviewees, measures of merit have little to do with an observed privilige pay gap. They control for measures linked to privilege - education; regions of the UK (London pay is higher but getting even on the rental ladder for graduates often requires support from the bank of Mum and Dad); and 'occupational sorting' (people's own choice of occupation - the children of doctors are 24 times as likely to become doctors as the general public). These all explain a material pay gap but only c. half of that observed - the rest, they suspect, comes from cultural factors within the workplace.
They also control for demographic factors and, interestingly if depressingly, find evidence of intersectionality white women and people of colour from working- class backgrounds face a very clear ‘double disadvantage’ in earnings, which can be multiplicative rather than simply additive.
From an academic point of view they draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu and, compared to previous studies, look at progress through the workplace rather than just at the point of entry.
At root a Bourdieusian lens insists that our class background is defined by our parents’ stocks of three primary forms of capital: economic capital (wealth and income), cultural capital (educational credentials and the possession of legitimate knowledge, skills and tastes) and social capital (valuable social connections and friendships).
And while economic and social capital are easier to observe...
In contrast, it is much harder to detect the intergenerational transfer of cultural capital, and therefore we tend to (mis) read it in everyday life as a signal of a person’s ‘natural’ sophistication (that they have an ‘an eye for fashion’ or a ‘sophisticated palate’, for example), or even their innate intelligence.
Within the work place they, drawing on others work, uses terms such as the glass slipper and looking glass (I couldn't help feel 'class slipper' and 'looking glass') would have been better:
The glass slipper metaphor, developed by American scholar Karen Ashcraft, captures the way in which particular occupations come to appear possessed of inherent characteristics that have little to do with the actual work yet render them a natural fit for some and a stretch, if not an impossibility, for others
...
This, then, is often [leads to ] a thinly veiled ‘looking- glass’ version of ‘merit’, of demonstrating an ability to embody relatively arbitrary (and highly classed) behavioural norms, or cultural preferences and tastes, that then function as signals of suitability among senior decision- makers.
The main and most accessible of the book illustrates these concepts by three case studies, and interviews with individuals (both from professional and working-class backgrounds and at senior and more junior levels) in four areas:
We draw on case studies of three (anonymised) organisations– a national television broadcaster, 6TV; a large multinational accounting firm, Turner Clarke; and an architecture practice, Coopers– as well as an examination of self- employed actors.
Now I can see why they were anonymised, because they are fairly hard hitting. E.g. progress in the most well paid parts of '6TV', the commissioning team, certainly suffers from a requirement to fit in with a certain type of 'cultured' behaviour, even when discussing the next series of Big Brother. And the Big 4 accounting firm 'Turner Clarke' suffers from an over-reliance on marking out even relatively young recruits as to whether they are or aren't 'partner material', which has little to do with merit in their current role and much more to do with perceived 'fit' and 'polish' (something that was very visible to me in my time at PwC in the 1990s).
Although what I find odd is that having anonymised the firms they then drop helpful clues to help you identify them! Turner Clarke is one of the big 4, and in case 4 is too many to choose from the authors helpfully tell us it isn't KPMG - and from other 'clues' I strongly suspect it is Deloitte. I don't know the name of a single firm of architects but I suspect the clues are there for people who do know the sector. And as for '6TV' the chapter on them opens with a gratuitously detailed description of their HQ:
6TV does not wear its visual identity lightly. Occupying a corner plot in an otherwise quiet and unassuming district of North London, its large purpose- built headquarters jut out loudly, dominating the surrounding built environment. The building itself, clad in powder- grey aluminium and glass, is an outlandish, futuristic creation. Arranged in a distinct L- shape, it addresses the corner of the street with a curved connecting space framed by two ‘satellite towers’. In the middle is the entrance, the most dramatic aspect of the design. A stepped ramp leads from the street over a glass bridge towards a dramatic concave glazed wall.
The only thing they omit to mention is the large "4" outside the
To be fair, Channel 4 have subsequently gone public with their involvement and actually all credit to them and the other firms involved - the first part of tackling any issues is an honest assessment that you have an issue.
And in terms of the authors' recommendations, prepared with the help of The Bridge Group () you can find them here.
The summary list:
1. Measure and monitor class background
2. Find out whether your organisation has a class ceiling
3. Start a conversation about talent
4. Take intersectionality seriously
5. Publish social mobility data
6. Ban unpaid and unadvertised internships
7. Engage middle and senior managers
8. Formalise the culture of informal sponsorship
9. Support those who want it
10. Lobby for legal protection
Finally for those like me in financial and professional services in the UK, an important new report came out this week from the Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce of the City of London: Building The Baseline: Breaking the Class Barrier
Strongly recommended to read.
March 21, 2019
This is an important work on the sociology of elite recruitment which seeks to capture the "long shadow of class origin". Along the way, the authors are insightful in so many ways, a bullet list of highlights is unavoidable:
- the role of "meritocracy" (see Francis Wheen on the satirical foundations of that term) in providing a sense of legitimacy for the status quo and which provides a "looking-glass version of merit rooted in class-cultural similarity"
- empty egalitarian gestures in work space design (open-plan offices, for example), which mask hierarchical career structures
- the importance of the "Bank of Mum and Dad" in reducing risks (for example, allowing actors to be picky about roles - I always thought that the ultimate example of this has to be Daniel Day Lewis, who's lauded universally when I wonder how much easier it is to throw oneself into one job every half decade) - "people fail to see how their agency is scaffolded by the resources of others"
- class-eased measures of aptitude, such as "polish", or gravitas (which I was once told can be taught to students to help employability)
- examples of "microaggressions", for example working-class accents being mocked
It seems that the class effect on career progression (ignoring costs of entry) is heightened by a lack of technical requirements - for example, a traditional profession (such as architecture) requires demonstrable technical expertise unlike the entertainment industry, or a leadership role in academic publishing, say.
The long shadow of class origin also plays out emotionally, "imposter syndrome" posing something of an insecurity tax - perhaps everyone half expects a meeting to be brought to an abrupt halt as some posh person barks "you don't know what the fuck you're doing, do you?" But it seems less likely that the middle and upper classes ending that anxiety dream by wrapping their belongings in a handkerchief and taking the high road out of town. The essential "emotional energy [to battle] a headwind [is something] that those from privileged backgrounds simply do not have to" deal with.
I wondered about the role of class in a market society given pay inequalities (the "class gap" figure suggested by the authors is startling), a free-market economist might say that class is expensive, has little to no effect on performance, and thus a "moneyball" type approach would be to "hire down" the class scale. The authors do raise the fact that social mobility is not the unequivocally positive force it's cracked up to be, but perhaps that's another book. The final section on policy/practical suggestions to "break the class ceiling" would appear to be a minimum requirement (measure - and publish data on - class background in various ways, but at least via parental occupation; unpack conceptions of merit, talent and competence*; take intersectionality seriously; ban unpaid internships; beware informal procedures; and lobby for legal protection), unless or until the inevitable international socialist revolution takes effect.
* I'm reminded of a claim that a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn remarked that "competence is a bourgeois construct" which is a sentence that is amusing in different ways, but ultimately true.
- the role of "meritocracy" (see Francis Wheen on the satirical foundations of that term) in providing a sense of legitimacy for the status quo and which provides a "looking-glass version of merit rooted in class-cultural similarity"
- empty egalitarian gestures in work space design (open-plan offices, for example), which mask hierarchical career structures
- the importance of the "Bank of Mum and Dad" in reducing risks (for example, allowing actors to be picky about roles - I always thought that the ultimate example of this has to be Daniel Day Lewis, who's lauded universally when I wonder how much easier it is to throw oneself into one job every half decade) - "people fail to see how their agency is scaffolded by the resources of others"
- class-eased measures of aptitude, such as "polish", or gravitas (which I was once told can be taught to students to help employability)
- examples of "microaggressions", for example working-class accents being mocked
It seems that the class effect on career progression (ignoring costs of entry) is heightened by a lack of technical requirements - for example, a traditional profession (such as architecture) requires demonstrable technical expertise unlike the entertainment industry, or a leadership role in academic publishing, say.
The long shadow of class origin also plays out emotionally, "imposter syndrome" posing something of an insecurity tax - perhaps everyone half expects a meeting to be brought to an abrupt halt as some posh person barks "you don't know what the fuck you're doing, do you?" But it seems less likely that the middle and upper classes ending that anxiety dream by wrapping their belongings in a handkerchief and taking the high road out of town. The essential "emotional energy [to battle] a headwind [is something] that those from privileged backgrounds simply do not have to" deal with.
I wondered about the role of class in a market society given pay inequalities (the "class gap" figure suggested by the authors is startling), a free-market economist might say that class is expensive, has little to no effect on performance, and thus a "moneyball" type approach would be to "hire down" the class scale. The authors do raise the fact that social mobility is not the unequivocally positive force it's cracked up to be, but perhaps that's another book. The final section on policy/practical suggestions to "break the class ceiling" would appear to be a minimum requirement (measure - and publish data on - class background in various ways, but at least via parental occupation; unpack conceptions of merit, talent and competence*; take intersectionality seriously; ban unpaid internships; beware informal procedures; and lobby for legal protection), unless or until the inevitable international socialist revolution takes effect.
* I'm reminded of a claim that a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn remarked that "competence is a bourgeois construct" which is a sentence that is amusing in different ways, but ultimately true.
May 22, 2021
I am now full of rage. Not that I didn't know these things before, but having numbers collaborate my lived experience has done my head in.
March 11, 2020
Giving it 5 stars in case my lecturer ever sees this.
no but really it's very good!!!!
no but really it's very good!!!!
March 17, 2021
this was the most influential book that I have read throughout my whole education and, quite ironically, it showed me how full of shit the education system actually is. extremaly detailed, multidimensional empirical analysis showing that our society runs on the myth of meritocracy and class division never ceased to exist. regardless of your background, this book will make you uncomfortable. but I believe that everyone should read it, especially before entering the labour market.
August 15, 2021
A fascinating study on the relationship between class background (occupation of parents) and career progression in the top profession, thereby on the feasibility of social mobility across generations. Gut-wrenching results, in particular on the multiplicative effects of class, race, and gender, with some bright spots.
Shout-out to the authors for a very clear and easily read text—a fast, well-worth read.
Shout-out to the authors for a very clear and easily read text—a fast, well-worth read.
March 24, 2023
An essential analysis of the class system in place in the UK. Really informative and easy to understand.
February 26, 2021
We love a good book in the tradition of Bourdieu and that engages with how we define "merit"! I've been thinking a lot lately about what "merit" means in a meritocracy and about the insidious ways social class can manifest itself in institutions, so it was really interesting to read this book and engage with these new quantitative insights. The "class ceiling", so to speak, is not necessarily a new concept, but the way that this book looks at not just getting in but how people progress in these careers is truly novel. It's also been really cool to read Chetty's work, for example, and then see it referenced in other academic works. I feel like I'm slowly catching up with the literature!
September 10, 2023
Honestly, I just read this for school. Quite interesting, but it took 10 years of my life to finish it.
April 17, 2025
4🌟
This was a very interesting read and it definitely deepened my understanding of class issues, barries to those in certain classes and the class system in British society. Reading this in 2025 is slightly outdated in terms of data but I still found it a very informative read and I really enjoyed it as it's an issue I am very interested in as a working class person myself. Class is one of those things that you can't outwardly see like race/ethnicity and sometimes religion but it still has an impact on people's careers.
I also found it quite insightful to read the case studies and how certain classes and 'types of people' can be favoured in professions within television and media etc. For example, it can genuinely just be more about your personality and whether you get along with people and 'fit in' rather than having the knowledge to the job which working class people chase more for certain jobs like a certain degree in film/tv but people at the top just have the connections and an understanding of the behaviour and lingo to get themselves there.
I found it was a very accessible read which I appreciated and love as texts should be accessible to all and not necessarily always have to be written academically!
I also found it really relatable at times for example, one of the case studies mentioned had an anecdote from a working class person in television and they felt they couldn't 'fit in' with the crowd because they weren't raised in the same cultural way as a privileged person if that makes sense. or another one was sometimes working class people just simply don't understand conversations happening in front of them between perhaps more privileged colleagues or individuals because of differences in speech/ articulation. I somewhat felt that as someone who actually now works at one of the 'elite' organisational case studies in the book (though at a very very entry level) but tend to find myself googling word definitions very often.
a book can only do so much and it was nice to see an emphasis calling on the political world to enact some change in this area as I believe class inequality is a big issue even now and with the way the economy may be going it's about to get a lot worse...
I feel like I had a lot to say on this and I want to know more so if you see this review and have any other recs pls pls let me know!!
This was a very interesting read and it definitely deepened my understanding of class issues, barries to those in certain classes and the class system in British society. Reading this in 2025 is slightly outdated in terms of data but I still found it a very informative read and I really enjoyed it as it's an issue I am very interested in as a working class person myself. Class is one of those things that you can't outwardly see like race/ethnicity and sometimes religion but it still has an impact on people's careers.
I also found it quite insightful to read the case studies and how certain classes and 'types of people' can be favoured in professions within television and media etc. For example, it can genuinely just be more about your personality and whether you get along with people and 'fit in' rather than having the knowledge to the job which working class people chase more for certain jobs like a certain degree in film/tv but people at the top just have the connections and an understanding of the behaviour and lingo to get themselves there.
I found it was a very accessible read which I appreciated and love as texts should be accessible to all and not necessarily always have to be written academically!
I also found it really relatable at times for example, one of the case studies mentioned had an anecdote from a working class person in television and they felt they couldn't 'fit in' with the crowd because they weren't raised in the same cultural way as a privileged person if that makes sense. or another one was sometimes working class people just simply don't understand conversations happening in front of them between perhaps more privileged colleagues or individuals because of differences in speech/ articulation. I somewhat felt that as someone who actually now works at one of the 'elite' organisational case studies in the book (though at a very very entry level) but tend to find myself googling word definitions very often.
a book can only do so much and it was nice to see an emphasis calling on the political world to enact some change in this area as I believe class inequality is a big issue even now and with the way the economy may be going it's about to get a lot worse...
I feel like I had a lot to say on this and I want to know more so if you see this review and have any other recs pls pls let me know!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 24, 2021
This book is a must read for everyone who is interested in class issues in society.
Book starts by telling us that it pays to be privileged in the UK, the privileged gain access to the best jobs easier, and when they get in, they get on much better compared to working class origins people.
There are numerous reasons for this, but I’d like to note the `glass slipper` notion from the Cinderella story. You know, Cinderella and her ugly sisters tried to wear the slipper, but obviously it only fitted Cinderella, because the slipper was already made for her. This notion, explains the `getting on` situation for the top jobs for the wealthy and privileged in the UK. Best jobs are designed to be done by the upper middle class people, like investment banking or TV commissioning. Therefore these jobs are actually easier for the wealthy people!
Second thing I’d like to stop on is the notion of `merit`. This is a risky area because merit is judged again by the people in these elite organisations. This creates an environment, where people surround themselves with people who are actually like them. Furthermore this causes the illusion that the privileged have more `merit` to access and rise in these jobs. Accent, culture and even dressing styles can be markers of merit according to these people.
So again this book is an amazing contribution to the discussion of class inequality from the perspective of access to good jobs and the chance to get promoted to upper levels once in.
Book starts by telling us that it pays to be privileged in the UK, the privileged gain access to the best jobs easier, and when they get in, they get on much better compared to working class origins people.
There are numerous reasons for this, but I’d like to note the `glass slipper` notion from the Cinderella story. You know, Cinderella and her ugly sisters tried to wear the slipper, but obviously it only fitted Cinderella, because the slipper was already made for her. This notion, explains the `getting on` situation for the top jobs for the wealthy and privileged in the UK. Best jobs are designed to be done by the upper middle class people, like investment banking or TV commissioning. Therefore these jobs are actually easier for the wealthy people!
Second thing I’d like to stop on is the notion of `merit`. This is a risky area because merit is judged again by the people in these elite organisations. This creates an environment, where people surround themselves with people who are actually like them. Furthermore this causes the illusion that the privileged have more `merit` to access and rise in these jobs. Accent, culture and even dressing styles can be markers of merit according to these people.
So again this book is an amazing contribution to the discussion of class inequality from the perspective of access to good jobs and the chance to get promoted to upper levels once in.
August 14, 2020
More of a scientific paper than a book, although gives a lot of food for thought
May 22, 2022
Fascinating deep dive into social class and its effect on career progression. This book talks about some key traits within the workplace that nobody really seems to talk about, which ultimately disadvantage people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. This looks at a few industries in particular but I could see the parallels between issues that prevailed in those professions and my own. The language/style is also very accessible.
February 8, 2023
Super interesting and well-researched.
January 23, 2020
A very important book, confirmed what we all know if one comes from a disadvantaged background.
September 15, 2019
I was looking for some new results in this new book and found few if any. The authors explore the factors limiting efforts to join and prosper in elite British professional firms and some elite professions such as acting. Economic/social class, elite education (Oxford and Cambridge), access to critical social networks, ethnicity and gender, and other factors all helpto explain the continuing homogeneity and limited access to these professions. Access is better than it was and there appears to be potential for individual skill, character, and achievements. Still, when all is said and done, it pays to be privileged, as the title suggests.
These results are based on a statistical analysis of some fairly recent government data. The regression results appear to explain half the sample variation. To push further, the authors also incorporate the results of 175 interviews. They are forthcoming about their methods. Their results sound reasonable.
So what is the issue? Well, it is now clear to me that privilege is important in joining and prospering in English elite professional firms. Too bad I already knew that. I do not see anything new or really interesting in this. We know that employers have tended to hire people like themselves when left to their own devices. Elite firms appear to still do this, with some exceptions. We have long known that who you know matters in hiring and promotion and so it does here. Going to Oxford or Cambridge opens doors for graduates - is this surprising?
I wish there were more takeaways from this. The discussion of next steps was disappointing - it read as an example of redefining the problem as a solution (make the informal more formal?). Elite firms are notoriously private so tracking changes in privilege seems a bit unrealistic. The theoretical discussion of Bordieu was not helpful, either.
These results are based on a statistical analysis of some fairly recent government data. The regression results appear to explain half the sample variation. To push further, the authors also incorporate the results of 175 interviews. They are forthcoming about their methods. Their results sound reasonable.
So what is the issue? Well, it is now clear to me that privilege is important in joining and prospering in English elite professional firms. Too bad I already knew that. I do not see anything new or really interesting in this. We know that employers have tended to hire people like themselves when left to their own devices. Elite firms appear to still do this, with some exceptions. We have long known that who you know matters in hiring and promotion and so it does here. Going to Oxford or Cambridge opens doors for graduates - is this surprising?
I wish there were more takeaways from this. The discussion of next steps was disappointing - it read as an example of redefining the problem as a solution (make the informal more formal?). Elite firms are notoriously private so tracking changes in privilege seems a bit unrealistic. The theoretical discussion of Bordieu was not helpful, either.
March 22, 2023
This was an interesting book on the surface, though I didn't learn much - if anything - from it at all, and that's a starkly upsetting realisation to have...
Throughout the book, I kept reminding myself that certain elements of this commentary and research would not seem new to me, having written my undergraduate dissertation on Social Class within the Scottish Music Curriculum. My research leant heavily on Bourdieu and his concept of 'Habitus', much like "The Class Ceiling" does, exploring the ways in which people feel locked out from an understanding or opportunity due to mismatches of social and cultural capital. I am not entirely sure what I hoped to gain from this book - perhaps some recommendations as to how we might act upon the flawed systems we see in the workplace? The epilogue offers a few bullet points, but these would have been worth exploring in much further detail in my opinion.
Something I *did* enjoy, however, was the way that Friedman and Laurison dipped in and out of various case studies to illustrate their points, exemplifying concepts by corroborating with subject interviews. I found this approach very personal and was something I could identify with and relate to. In particular, the industries chosen gave an interesting overview of how the class ceiling is not discipline-specific, and that humanities, and sciences alike, present problems of access and progress for the underrepresented.
I noticed this ceiling at the University of Edinburgh. I felt this way during teacher training, and on all of my placements. I wasn't familiar with academia, or what was taught at GCSE and A Level. I wasn't in a choir and classically trained to develop a repertoire with foundations in the Western Canon during primary and secondary school. I hadn't spent evenings and weekends at the opera and I didn't have the Bank Of Mum and Dad to cover expenses until I could be reimbursed, or to provide a steady basic sustainable cash flow whilst looking for unreliable yet developmental work.
I tried to break the class ceiling as a secondary school music teacher and I decided enough was enough. "The Class Ceiling" calls this 'self-elimination'. I disagree. That term implies that if I had simply kept going or worked harder, I could have reached a place where I was successful. Maybe so, but would I have been happy? Therefore I choose not to refer to this as 'self-eliminating' but rather; 're-evaluating', because why subscribe to the idea that social mobility should be the commonly-held goal when the life you strive for may not be a happy one?
I have code-switched (and still do) to get along with the right people and make professional life easier. But part of the reason for my upward trajectory through the class ceiling is that I now work for a charity with socially just and intersectionally informed employment processes. This organisation focuses on merit, potential, and interest like other employers do, but it also values perspective and offers in-house training so that people can upskill without having to worry about where their qualifications and experience were gained.
I also wonder whether my role being remote/hybrid has removed enough of the social elements that are so inescapable in a brick office building, to crack the social tiles on that class ceiling... Could less coffee break chats and more concrete evidence of proficiency and competency help to deliver that shattering blow when we're working on Teams from our homes?
I think their fatal flaw is that Friedman and Laurison fail to correctly identify whose problem the class ceiling is to tackle. Too often were the case studies in this book (similar to real life) focused on the individual and their own attempts to smash the class ceiling in a quest for upward mobility. In fact, the class ceiling is everyone's problem, and we all have some responsibility in its eradication. Employers should reevaluate their recruitment processes to value multiple forms of accreditation and experience, mandate implicit bias training, and separate the social from the professional in the interview room.
I look forward to seeing this journey play out and very much hope that it happens soon.
Throughout the book, I kept reminding myself that certain elements of this commentary and research would not seem new to me, having written my undergraduate dissertation on Social Class within the Scottish Music Curriculum. My research leant heavily on Bourdieu and his concept of 'Habitus', much like "The Class Ceiling" does, exploring the ways in which people feel locked out from an understanding or opportunity due to mismatches of social and cultural capital. I am not entirely sure what I hoped to gain from this book - perhaps some recommendations as to how we might act upon the flawed systems we see in the workplace? The epilogue offers a few bullet points, but these would have been worth exploring in much further detail in my opinion.
Something I *did* enjoy, however, was the way that Friedman and Laurison dipped in and out of various case studies to illustrate their points, exemplifying concepts by corroborating with subject interviews. I found this approach very personal and was something I could identify with and relate to. In particular, the industries chosen gave an interesting overview of how the class ceiling is not discipline-specific, and that humanities, and sciences alike, present problems of access and progress for the underrepresented.
I noticed this ceiling at the University of Edinburgh. I felt this way during teacher training, and on all of my placements. I wasn't familiar with academia, or what was taught at GCSE and A Level. I wasn't in a choir and classically trained to develop a repertoire with foundations in the Western Canon during primary and secondary school. I hadn't spent evenings and weekends at the opera and I didn't have the Bank Of Mum and Dad to cover expenses until I could be reimbursed, or to provide a steady basic sustainable cash flow whilst looking for unreliable yet developmental work.
I tried to break the class ceiling as a secondary school music teacher and I decided enough was enough. "The Class Ceiling" calls this 'self-elimination'. I disagree. That term implies that if I had simply kept going or worked harder, I could have reached a place where I was successful. Maybe so, but would I have been happy? Therefore I choose not to refer to this as 'self-eliminating' but rather; 're-evaluating', because why subscribe to the idea that social mobility should be the commonly-held goal when the life you strive for may not be a happy one?
I have code-switched (and still do) to get along with the right people and make professional life easier. But part of the reason for my upward trajectory through the class ceiling is that I now work for a charity with socially just and intersectionally informed employment processes. This organisation focuses on merit, potential, and interest like other employers do, but it also values perspective and offers in-house training so that people can upskill without having to worry about where their qualifications and experience were gained.
I also wonder whether my role being remote/hybrid has removed enough of the social elements that are so inescapable in a brick office building, to crack the social tiles on that class ceiling... Could less coffee break chats and more concrete evidence of proficiency and competency help to deliver that shattering blow when we're working on Teams from our homes?
I think their fatal flaw is that Friedman and Laurison fail to correctly identify whose problem the class ceiling is to tackle. Too often were the case studies in this book (similar to real life) focused on the individual and their own attempts to smash the class ceiling in a quest for upward mobility. In fact, the class ceiling is everyone's problem, and we all have some responsibility in its eradication. Employers should reevaluate their recruitment processes to value multiple forms of accreditation and experience, mandate implicit bias training, and separate the social from the professional in the interview room.
I look forward to seeing this journey play out and very much hope that it happens soon.
October 1, 2023
this is not a groundbreaking discovery: it obviously pays to be privileged. this read presents the upsetting reasons as to why. as the authors explain throughout the book, it is virtually impossible to dissociate from one's socioeconomic background – this is an unshakable truth and it will stay as such even when it comes to what you take away from this reading.
Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison will take you on a something like a bus journey with several stops along the way to explain why it does pay to be privileged – i will not stop at every one of them, but i would like to point some of them out.
the first one is the glass slipper analogy made in the “fitting in” chapter – the notion that regardless of how similar two academic or professional paths are one’s socioeconomic background will offer a set of tools to understand an unwritten code that will look indecipherable to someone else. the cinderella idea that the glass slipper fits one person instead of the other because it simply looks right.
the second one is the “self-elimination” chapter in connection with the “the bank of mum and dad” chapter – it’s safe to say that success will often be a matter of taking risks and betting on winning dogs: but who is it that can afford to take these risks? how does the risk of failure sound to someone who has little to no failsafe? even if this risk taking approach sounds risky to an audience with somewhere to fall back on (the mum and dad bank, for example) it will sound nearly impossible for someone who cannot afford to be left with no steady income. this means that the latter will often opt out of the risk and take a more “this isn’t for me approach” when presented with a risky opportunity.
this will often also be what is behind the ones who keep investing in and make time for technical knowledge instead of using up all their time for work – ultimately gaining leverage over those who can’t manage to do so.
i would like to point out that none of this goes to say that there is more or less merit in one scenario or the other, as the authors put it, this isn’t about merit, this is about the highroad that still exists for people of a certain background, regardless of how incredibly talented they are - the class ceiling that is yet to break for those of a working class background.
overall this is a good read and the clearest academic read i’ve done in a while – highly recommend.
Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison will take you on a something like a bus journey with several stops along the way to explain why it does pay to be privileged – i will not stop at every one of them, but i would like to point some of them out.
the first one is the glass slipper analogy made in the “fitting in” chapter – the notion that regardless of how similar two academic or professional paths are one’s socioeconomic background will offer a set of tools to understand an unwritten code that will look indecipherable to someone else. the cinderella idea that the glass slipper fits one person instead of the other because it simply looks right.
the second one is the “self-elimination” chapter in connection with the “the bank of mum and dad” chapter – it’s safe to say that success will often be a matter of taking risks and betting on winning dogs: but who is it that can afford to take these risks? how does the risk of failure sound to someone who has little to no failsafe? even if this risk taking approach sounds risky to an audience with somewhere to fall back on (the mum and dad bank, for example) it will sound nearly impossible for someone who cannot afford to be left with no steady income. this means that the latter will often opt out of the risk and take a more “this isn’t for me approach” when presented with a risky opportunity.
this will often also be what is behind the ones who keep investing in and make time for technical knowledge instead of using up all their time for work – ultimately gaining leverage over those who can’t manage to do so.
i would like to point out that none of this goes to say that there is more or less merit in one scenario or the other, as the authors put it, this isn’t about merit, this is about the highroad that still exists for people of a certain background, regardless of how incredibly talented they are - the class ceiling that is yet to break for those of a working class background.
overall this is a good read and the clearest academic read i’ve done in a while – highly recommend.
June 7, 2023
Incredibly accessible look into the barriers faced by many in the workplace due to their socioeconomic status and upbringing. This is a great starting point for anyone interested in learning about social mobility research and the evidence we have that despite striving forward in providing 'equal opportunities' we still have a long way to go in making that a reality for those from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds.
Follow GotDis on Instagram to learn how we're helping students and graduates overcome barriers at work to fulfil their potential.
Follow GotDis on Instagram to learn how we're helping students and graduates overcome barriers at work to fulfil their potential.
August 9, 2025
- Kind of obvious/expected observations, but well structured and presented like proper research w data vs. most of the recent pseudoscience bs lit (o/). It was really refreshing to read after "Coddling of the American Mind" to get a clear sense of hard content vs. bs. Authors spent a ton of effort compiling this content (vs. the other one probably could be written in a day with some LLM). Some of the data/analysis is fascinating. Good one to keep and remember.
- Some fun takeaways
- Merit is in the eye of the privileged beholder.
- Glass slippers. Designed to fit the Cinderellas.
- Buzzword/Lingo/Topics to in or out you. Check this out in your next Country/Ivy Club convo.
- Homophilic bonds.
- 6TV is clearly Channel4. Even I got this, LOL. TC is one of them big4, oh well, sans PwC, but i am sure all the same.
- contest vs. sponsored mobility. fragility/vulnerability of success w/o sponsorship.
- Themes
- Why it pays to br priveleged
- Class Ceiling
- Becoz, "Confidence"; more vocal, assertive. It is not confidence though. Confidence in a specific setting. Confidence is situational.
- "decisive"; "taking risk";
- "actively seeking promo, growth, next step"; " "negotiating"; "pushing fwd"
- getting advice; senior support;
- They get fast tracked
- Bonds dont form based on work/merit
- ie, nepo babies
- Bordieu's 3 capitals:
- Economic
- Cultural
- Social
- UpperMiddleClass vs. WorkingClass
- UMC 12X more likely Dr than WC
- UMC 2X more likely Eng than WC (LOL, some better meritocracy)
- Parent Dr 24X more likely Dr vs. parent non-doctor. Wow.
- Reason: 1. They teach the rules of the game; 2. They get opportunities (eg, internships).
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1du5w...
- [image error]
- Feels good to be an eng.
- This hits hard by authors. Even if WC students outperform PrivilegedClass(PC) students. They have lower P{get a top role}:
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ugrf...
- [image error]
- UMC data also really interesting in this one.
- CEO and Film/TV roles are the most discriminatory. (How about upper govt?)
- Eng roles are the most discriminatery for women. :(.
- contest vs. sponsored mobility
- Sponsored: vague buzzword justification. Based on immediate cultural affinity.
- This is like the behavioral interview.
- You get there via contest as well. but spend substantially more in each step and get there later. turtle.
- fragility/vulnerability of success w/o sponsorship.
- Crazy example interview: "Tell the guy do this, try that. You Re not ready yet, we'll get someone at mandatory retirement come in for couple years and teach you, then kick him and get you there. "
- Glass Slipper: "Polish" / "Lack of Polish"
- Same as "executive presence" i think :)
- Dress accordingly, speak w conf and ease
- Hello Genteel
- advisory vs. audit
- If you are advising. confidence > competence. Just semblance of competence.
- Audit, (ie technical work), you are immediately expected to back it up w tech competence.
- Highbrow tastes more a fence to exclude than a bridge to connect. Elite signaling.
- Self elimination: Supply vs. Demand. WC make calculations to self eliminate. Anticipating demand barriers. Anxiety/insecurity. 3 ways: 1. Opt out of progression; 2. Risk aversion; 3. Dont play the game.
- Emotional self protection
- Those who made it also call thr emotional toll of pretending to fit in and playing the game. Imposter syndrome.
- Also some introvert undertones?
- Sense of unbelonging
- Social Mobility: Juggling emotional toil of insecurity, anxiety, and also looking back guilt, estrangement. Reconcilibg these us a burden. But also some superpowers when you can transcend boundaries.
- Summary: All in one place
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e3R9...
- Epilogue: 10 ideas (somewhat weak, unrealistic/impractica in current worldview)
- Measure/Monitor Class background
- Find out class ceiling
- Clarify what "talent" is
- Take Intersectionality Seriously
- Publish Social Mobility Data
- No unpaid/unadvertised Internships
- Better, Transparent Senior Championship
- Informal->Formal Sponsorship
- Better support to mitigate self select out
- Legal Protection
- Some fun takeaways
- Merit is in the eye of the privileged beholder.
- Glass slippers. Designed to fit the Cinderellas.
- Buzzword/Lingo/Topics to in or out you. Check this out in your next Country/Ivy Club convo.
- Homophilic bonds.
- 6TV is clearly Channel4. Even I got this, LOL. TC is one of them big4, oh well, sans PwC, but i am sure all the same.
- contest vs. sponsored mobility. fragility/vulnerability of success w/o sponsorship.
- Themes
- Why it pays to br priveleged
- Class Ceiling
- Becoz, "Confidence"; more vocal, assertive. It is not confidence though. Confidence in a specific setting. Confidence is situational.
- "decisive"; "taking risk";
- "actively seeking promo, growth, next step"; " "negotiating"; "pushing fwd"
- getting advice; senior support;
- They get fast tracked
- Bonds dont form based on work/merit
- ie, nepo babies
- Bordieu's 3 capitals:
- Economic
- Cultural
- Social
- UpperMiddleClass vs. WorkingClass
- UMC 12X more likely Dr than WC
- UMC 2X more likely Eng than WC (LOL, some better meritocracy)
- Parent Dr 24X more likely Dr vs. parent non-doctor. Wow.
- Reason: 1. They teach the rules of the game; 2. They get opportunities (eg, internships).
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1du5w...
- [image error]
- Feels good to be an eng.
- This hits hard by authors. Even if WC students outperform PrivilegedClass(PC) students. They have lower P{get a top role}:
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ugrf...
- [image error]
- UMC data also really interesting in this one.
- CEO and Film/TV roles are the most discriminatory. (How about upper govt?)
- Eng roles are the most discriminatery for women. :(.
- contest vs. sponsored mobility
- Sponsored: vague buzzword justification. Based on immediate cultural affinity.
- This is like the behavioral interview.
- You get there via contest as well. but spend substantially more in each step and get there later. turtle.
- fragility/vulnerability of success w/o sponsorship.
- Crazy example interview: "Tell the guy do this, try that. You Re not ready yet, we'll get someone at mandatory retirement come in for couple years and teach you, then kick him and get you there. "
- Glass Slipper: "Polish" / "Lack of Polish"
- Same as "executive presence" i think :)
- Dress accordingly, speak w conf and ease
- Hello Genteel
- advisory vs. audit
- If you are advising. confidence > competence. Just semblance of competence.
- Audit, (ie technical work), you are immediately expected to back it up w tech competence.
- Highbrow tastes more a fence to exclude than a bridge to connect. Elite signaling.
- Self elimination: Supply vs. Demand. WC make calculations to self eliminate. Anticipating demand barriers. Anxiety/insecurity. 3 ways: 1. Opt out of progression; 2. Risk aversion; 3. Dont play the game.
- Emotional self protection
- Those who made it also call thr emotional toll of pretending to fit in and playing the game. Imposter syndrome.
- Also some introvert undertones?
- Sense of unbelonging
- Social Mobility: Juggling emotional toil of insecurity, anxiety, and also looking back guilt, estrangement. Reconcilibg these us a burden. But also some superpowers when you can transcend boundaries.
- Summary: All in one place
- GDrive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e3R9...
- Epilogue: 10 ideas (somewhat weak, unrealistic/impractica in current worldview)
- Measure/Monitor Class background
- Find out class ceiling
- Clarify what "talent" is
- Take Intersectionality Seriously
- Publish Social Mobility Data
- No unpaid/unadvertised Internships
- Better, Transparent Senior Championship
- Informal->Formal Sponsorship
- Better support to mitigate self select out
- Legal Protection
Read
July 29, 2024In the UK, there have been welcome policies that promote equal access to opportunities - for example, universities take positive action towards disadvantaged applicants - giving a sense that this society is largely fair. However, hard data based on the outcomes reveals otherwise.
Against this backdrop, this timely book showcases how cultural capital generated from privileged social class background is at play after students graduate from university and arrive at the workplace, then venture into middle and higher circles of their field, producing tellingly different results at the other end. We all know working class people have to work harder to ‘make it’, but few knows that even when you finally get there at some higher emotional and psychological costs (e.g. the lingering sense that you just don’t belong), you still face unexpected pay gap that is not so insignificant.
And of course, it’s not just pay gaps, working class people are less likely to choose a prestigious occupation to start with. High-status occupations are not just measured by monetary gain, they also have more influence / power on shaping society. It’s also worth noting that for working class people from marginalised groups, the effect of the ‘long shadow’ of their class origin is tenfold.
As a well-educated non-white immigrant who has lived through downward social mobility (as many first-generation immigrants from developing countries / regions do), I’d long suspected that was how things worked here through my experiences and observations. This book turns those hard-to-pin-down elements into a clear picture.
In reality, many people from lower social classes choose to self-eliminate from more prestigious areas in their profession, not because they are less ambitious, but because they are exhausted from negotiating all sorts of cultural and social unease in their workplace, which I can wholeheartedly relate to. I’m hopeful that books such as this one will raise more awareness to the hidden mechanisms that result in inequalities, and better measurements will be accordingly adopted, then in the future our children will not need to opt into self-elimination.
The “Methodological appendix” section at the end of the book makes an interesting read as well. Firms and institutions that agreed to let the authors conduct research and interviews within their organisation were those had regarded themselves as inclusive or were willing to be so, the results still revealed a not so level playing field, which makes one wonder how about all the other companies / organisations?
I just want to congratulate the authors on their thoroughly researched and insightful book. With many deep discussions on inequality based on race, gender, and sexuality, “class is the elephant in the room.”
For me, this book leads me to my next reads, which would be Pierre Bourdieu’s books and books on intersectionality, as well as books that can help me understand more about the working class (both white and BAME) in this country.
PS: To be fair, while class is pronounced in this country in a way that is more so than some other countries, this phenomenon is by no means restricted to the UK society. It probably just takes on different appearances in different countries, including my own.
Against this backdrop, this timely book showcases how cultural capital generated from privileged social class background is at play after students graduate from university and arrive at the workplace, then venture into middle and higher circles of their field, producing tellingly different results at the other end. We all know working class people have to work harder to ‘make it’, but few knows that even when you finally get there at some higher emotional and psychological costs (e.g. the lingering sense that you just don’t belong), you still face unexpected pay gap that is not so insignificant.
And of course, it’s not just pay gaps, working class people are less likely to choose a prestigious occupation to start with. High-status occupations are not just measured by monetary gain, they also have more influence / power on shaping society. It’s also worth noting that for working class people from marginalised groups, the effect of the ‘long shadow’ of their class origin is tenfold.
As a well-educated non-white immigrant who has lived through downward social mobility (as many first-generation immigrants from developing countries / regions do), I’d long suspected that was how things worked here through my experiences and observations. This book turns those hard-to-pin-down elements into a clear picture.
In reality, many people from lower social classes choose to self-eliminate from more prestigious areas in their profession, not because they are less ambitious, but because they are exhausted from negotiating all sorts of cultural and social unease in their workplace, which I can wholeheartedly relate to. I’m hopeful that books such as this one will raise more awareness to the hidden mechanisms that result in inequalities, and better measurements will be accordingly adopted, then in the future our children will not need to opt into self-elimination.
The “Methodological appendix” section at the end of the book makes an interesting read as well. Firms and institutions that agreed to let the authors conduct research and interviews within their organisation were those had regarded themselves as inclusive or were willing to be so, the results still revealed a not so level playing field, which makes one wonder how about all the other companies / organisations?
I just want to congratulate the authors on their thoroughly researched and insightful book. With many deep discussions on inequality based on race, gender, and sexuality, “class is the elephant in the room.”
For me, this book leads me to my next reads, which would be Pierre Bourdieu’s books and books on intersectionality, as well as books that can help me understand more about the working class (both white and BAME) in this country.
PS: To be fair, while class is pronounced in this country in a way that is more so than some other countries, this phenomenon is by no means restricted to the UK society. It probably just takes on different appearances in different countries, including my own.
May 20, 2022
The Class Ceiling provides an up-to-date picture of social inequality in some of Britain’s elite professions using data from the Labour Force Survey and interviews with people from four case study professions (architecture, accountancy, media, and acting). Its key take home message is that meritocracy is a myth, and access to and progress in elite professions is still largely determined by a peron's social background.
People from upper middle class backgrounds are 3.6 times more likely to be in one of the elite professions of law, journalism, medicine, and architecture. They are also likely to earn more than their working class colleagues who attended the same universities and attained first degrees. Most of the book deals with the drivers of social inequality in the workplace, revealed through extensive interviews. Some of the key hidden mechanisms include behavioural codes (having the 'right' accent, dress, and a sense of 'polish’), informal sponsorship, and ‘social closure’ or gatekeeping. The key to understanding many of these mechanisms is the concept of ‘homophily’, or individuals being tied through cultural affinity (i.e. those more likely to get sponsored/promoted tend to share cultural ties with those already in positions of power). No wonder that people from working class backgrounds often resort to acts of ‘self-elimination’, suffering feelings of insecurity and estrangement from their upbringing that result in the avoidance of opportunities to progress.
This was a good read (albeit depressing) and I found it was pitched at the right level. Note that all of the above is nicely illustrated in another report by Sam Friedman in 2021 concerning social inequality in the UK civil service ('Navigating the labyrinth').
People from upper middle class backgrounds are 3.6 times more likely to be in one of the elite professions of law, journalism, medicine, and architecture. They are also likely to earn more than their working class colleagues who attended the same universities and attained first degrees. Most of the book deals with the drivers of social inequality in the workplace, revealed through extensive interviews. Some of the key hidden mechanisms include behavioural codes (having the 'right' accent, dress, and a sense of 'polish’), informal sponsorship, and ‘social closure’ or gatekeeping. The key to understanding many of these mechanisms is the concept of ‘homophily’, or individuals being tied through cultural affinity (i.e. those more likely to get sponsored/promoted tend to share cultural ties with those already in positions of power). No wonder that people from working class backgrounds often resort to acts of ‘self-elimination’, suffering feelings of insecurity and estrangement from their upbringing that result in the avoidance of opportunities to progress.
This was a good read (albeit depressing) and I found it was pitched at the right level. Note that all of the above is nicely illustrated in another report by Sam Friedman in 2021 concerning social inequality in the UK civil service ('Navigating the labyrinth').
August 13, 2025
This is a very interesting analysis of the factors which can often either prevent people from modest socio-economic backgrounds get into some professions or companies in the first place or, if they do get into them, can slow or even prevent altogether their progress into more senior positions. It’s an area I’ve long had a personal interest in as I myself come from such a background and have been reasonably successful in my career, though I always felt that aspects of my childhood experience meant that I made less career ‘progress’ than otherwise might have been the case. Two things were notably important in my ‘story’ and have not really been given adequate weight in the book as I am sure that I share these with many others who have broken through the class ceiling. First I was of the generation which benefitted from going to a grammar school (in the 1960s). These were a notable opportunity for working class children. Second, my parents, even though they themselves left school at 14/15, came from modest backgrounds and did working class jobs during my childhood, put education on a pedestal and were highly committed to my brother and I ‘doing well’ at school and beyond. I don’t think this very important aspect of parental support is mentioned in the book. There are other points I could raise here but perhaps it’s not the right place for too much detail.
The book was, despite being about a formal academic study, mostly very readable for a lay reader. The one exception to this I felt was chapter ten: class ceilings, a new approach to social mobility, which slipped into the language of sociological study.
The book was, despite being about a formal academic study, mostly very readable for a lay reader. The one exception to this I felt was chapter ten: class ceilings, a new approach to social mobility, which slipped into the language of sociological study.
October 3, 2021
این تحلیل جامعهشناختی دقیق نشانمان میدهد که خلاف تصوّر غالب در سیستمهای کاپیتالیستی، لزوماً هر کسی به طور برابر فرصت رسیدن به رتبههای اجتماعی بالاتر را ندارد که حاصل همت و تلاش خودش باشد. نامهای خانوادگی و تاریخ تبارشناختی حتی در سیتیِ لندن سال ۲۰۱۸ نیز حرف اول را میزند (همانطور که احتمالاً نزد جد مشترک ما با هومینینهای دیگر چنین بود!) کتاب ساختارمندی است و برای دوری از توهمات، بهخصوص حالا که در میانههای عمر خود به سر میبرم کمک زیادی به آدم میکند. گاهی بخصوص حول و حوش همین سن و سالی که حالا دارم (۳۵ سالگی) دچار این توهم میشویم که اگر فلان کار را میکردم یا ساده از سر بهمان کار نمیگذشتم، حتما الان فلان رتبهای را داشتم که حالا ندارم و بابتش احساس شکست میکنم. در کل، هم قلم خوب، منسجم و تحلیلی این کتاب و هم محتوای آن، در کنار تیزبینی فریدمن و همکاران پژوهشیاش، آن را به یک رسالة توهّمزدای قوی تبدیل کرده که به گمانم به کار هم سن و سالهای دارای سطوح مختلفی از حسهای منفی بیاید!!!
May 13, 2024
This is truly an outstanding book. I was a bit hesitant when I started it because I was expecting a very data-dense, academic-style book, but I was immediately proven wrong. Assuming that we all agree that the topic itself of the book is absolutely necessary to be discussed and that the research findings are as infuriating as they are sadly predictable, what I really appreciated was the authors' effort of making the content easily understandable and accessible; the data and graphs provided are not thrown in just for the sake of adding numbers but are a genuinely valuable addition to the research shown throughout the chapters (I may be saying this only because I have an unhealthy obsession with data-ifying everything though).
The only reason why I am not giving it 5 stars is that I would have liked to see a bit more granularity in the class categorisation (i.e. I truly doubt that the child of a teacher could be considered to be privileged in the same way as a child of a CEO, especially if we consider the inherited social form of capital as theorised by Bourdieu and related by the authors, yet they were both in the same bucket of "professional background" / "upper-middle class").
The only reason why I am not giving it 5 stars is that I would have liked to see a bit more granularity in the class categorisation (i.e. I truly doubt that the child of a teacher could be considered to be privileged in the same way as a child of a CEO, especially if we consider the inherited social form of capital as theorised by Bourdieu and related by the authors, yet they were both in the same bucket of "professional background" / "upper-middle class").
December 10, 2021
Reads more as an academic paper than a book but nonetheless very well researched, interesting and engaging throughout. It’s definitely accessible which I appreciate.
I really enjoyed that this consisted mostly of qualitative research to assess why these class differences existed rather than just simply pointing to stats. It leads to this fascinating insight from professionals from both working class and upper class backgrounds about how their career trajectories operated and how your class affects your labour market opportunities often in very subtle ways.
Thankfully, this book does not commit the cardinal sin of forgetting to mention how race and gender intersect with class in the labour market, albeit these aspects are touched on very briefly and could have done with more insight (though I appreciate this would go beyond the scope of the research)
I really enjoyed that this consisted mostly of qualitative research to assess why these class differences existed rather than just simply pointing to stats. It leads to this fascinating insight from professionals from both working class and upper class backgrounds about how their career trajectories operated and how your class affects your labour market opportunities often in very subtle ways.
Thankfully, this book does not commit the cardinal sin of forgetting to mention how race and gender intersect with class in the labour market, albeit these aspects are touched on very briefly and could have done with more insight (though I appreciate this would go beyond the scope of the research)
December 19, 2021
Ultimately how you react to this book will probably depend quite a lot on your background and experiences - but I found it to be a fairly balanced analysis and I hope that it helps provide food for thought for all. In some ways there is nothing new - of course it pays to be privileged. However the authors do a very good job of illustrating how and why, even taking away the fact that those from less privileged backgrounds are less likely to get the right eduction to get in to ‘elite’ professions to begin with, for those who do ‘make it’ there is still an issue. It’s disheartening and depressing but also good to see studies finally starting to properly look at, quantify and highlight what is often a hidden problem.
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July 18, 2019Good book. I've noticed that at many organizations, the further up you go, the more likely it becomes who you know more so than what you know. I have very rarely seen anyone advance within companies as much as friends and family are brought in to secure jobs at the top of the organizational pyramid. I guess we all pick our friends and coworkers when he get to the nose bleed section of the corporate world. Those of us at the bottom get what we get....pathetic world. Schmoozers win, or dad's money buys it.
I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
I received a Kindle arc from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
February 16, 2025
This study was much more of an academic presentation that I had expected. Although as the two authors are academics, I should have been forewarned. The first few chapters are interesting, but a bit dry, and hard work if you are not into statistics. However, once they begin to focus on the numerous anonymous interviews then it begins to get very interesting. For people living in the UK, it probably doesn't come as a shock, yet it is still concerning that so much has apparently not changed in the upper echelons of the country.
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