The Social-Origins Gap in Labour Market Outcomes: Compensatory and Boosting Advantages Using a Micro-Class Approach

Abstract

Recent studies document a social-origins gap or direct effect of social origin (DESO) on labour market outcomes over and above respondents’ education, challenging the idea that post-industrial societies are education-based meritocracies. Yet, the literature offers insufficient explanations on DESO heterogeneity across education and different labour market outcomes. Little is also known about underlying mechanisms. We contribute by answering two questions: (i) How does DESO vary when comparing college-degree holders with non-holders? (ii) For which specific parental and children’s occupations is the largest DESO observed? We focus on Spain, using a large new dataset (n = 144,286). Firstly, we find a larger DESO on socioeconomic status among non-degree holders, and on income among degree holders. We propose the notions of compensatory advantage in occupational attainment and boosting advantage in income for high social-origin individuals to explain these opposite patterns, drawing from ‘downward mobility avoidance’ and ‘effectively maintained inequality’ theories. Secondly, we map origin and destination micro-classes where DESO is largest. High-grade managerial and professional parental occupations, characterized by social closure and influence in large organizations, are the origin micro-classes exerting the largest DESO. We also find that compensatory advantage for low-educated children from advantaged origins is related to their higher chances of accessing managerial occupations, while boosting advantage on income among college graduates is observed for high-grade managers and liberal professionals, suggesting that micro-class reproduction may partially account for boosting advantage. We conclude by discussing the generalizability of our findings to other countries and their implications for research on DESO, meritocracy and social mobility.

Historical change in an elite profession—Class origins and grades among law graduates over 200 years

“…The legal profession is an interesting case, with a long history of elite status in Norway as well as in other societies (Mountford‐Zimdars & Flood, 2016). Previous research has argued that law firms, together with other professional service firms, are especially important arenas for boosting the pay advantages of graduates with upper‐class social origins (Bernardi & Gil‐Hernández, 2020; Laurison & Friedman, 2016; Rivera, 2012). Occupational sorting, that graduates with higher‐class social origins or wealthy parents to a larger extent than others get access to the most prestigious and high‐paying firms, appears to be an important explanation of these findings (Laurison & Friedman, 2016; Toft & Friedman, 2020).…”

No socio-economic differences in ART treatment success: Evidence from Careggi Hospital, Italy

“…Second, our socio-economic indicator focused on capturing maternal occupational level, whereas most studies have focused on maternal education as main measure of SES. Nonetheless, occupation and education are usually highly correlated (Bernardi & Gil-Hernández, 2021;Ganzeboom, De Graaf, & Treiman, 1992).…”

Intergenerational class mobility in industrial and post-industrial societies: Towards a general theory

“…In particular, Bernardi and his associates have documented systematic 'class compensation effects' in educational careers, stemming from parents' concerns to ward off any threat of the downward mobility of their children (Bernardi, 2014;Bernardi and Cebolla-Boado, 2014; and see also Grätz and Wiborg, 2020). And subsequently, in the Spanish case, similar compensation effects have been shown (Bernardi and Gil-Hernández, 2021) to extend into the labour market in regard to children whose educational careers were less successful than hoped for. 11.…”

“…Counter-mobility remains a not uncommon ‘class trajectory’ in modern societies (for Britain, see Bukodi et al, 2016). And possibilities for such compensatory career advancement appear particularly favourable in the expanding services sectors of modern economies, where formal qualifications may matter less for career progression than personal and life-style attributes associated with more advantaged class origins (Jackson et al, 2005; Bernardi and Gil-Hernández, 2021).…”