{"id":8590,"date":"2016-10-11T15:16:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T15:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=8590"},"modified":"2016-10-11T15:54:13","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T15:54:13","slug":"from-glass-ceilings-to-class-ceilings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2016\/10\/11\/from-glass-ceilings-to-class-ceilings\/","title":{"rendered":"From Glass Ceilings to Class Ceilings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman, <\/span>“The Class Pay Gap in Higher Professional and Managerial Occupations,” American Sociological Review<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2016<\/span><\/div>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by William Murphy, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The concept of the \u201cglass ceiling\u201d has become increasingly popular in the American vernacular and a number of spin-off concepts have developed in its wake. The <\/span>glass ceiling<\/span><\/a> refers to the invisible barrier that keeps women from being promoted to top-tier positions in traditionally male-dominated careers. Similar concepts like the \u201c<\/span>bamboo ceiling<\/span><\/a>\u201d and the \u201c<\/span>stained-glass ceiling<\/span><\/a>\u201d have since been coined to describe the ways that women and minorities are kept from advancing in their careers. Now we can add the \u201c<\/span>class <\/span><\/i>ceiling\u201d to that list, which is developed in a new study by sociologists <\/span>Daniel Laurison<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Sam Friedman<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to capture the ways that class origins influence earnings in high-status occupations. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div> In their study using the most recent UK Labor Force Survey, Laurison and Friedman analyze the occupations of an individual\u2019s parents (their proxy for class origin) and how that influences people\u2019s earnings in high-status occupations like law, medicine, finance, and engineering. By comparing the earnings averages of individuals in these occupations against their class origin, the researchers explore the extent to which class origins predict future earnings. \u00a0Simply entering<\/i> a high-status occupation does not itself signal successful social mobility when differences within <\/i>occupations act as a barrier to advancement.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>
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\nLaurison and Friedman find strong evidence for a \u201cclass ceiling\u201d effect in which individuals from working-class origins experience a substantial pay gap when compared to their co-workers who come from upper-class origins. They state, \u201cEven when people who are from working-class backgrounds are successful in entering high-status occupations, they earn 17 percent less, on average, than individuals from privileged backgrounds\u201d in that same occupation. That pay gap translates into up to $11,000 lower annual earnings for individuals from lower-class families. The researchers conclude that simply <\/span>entering<\/span><\/i> a high-status occupation does not itself signal successful social mobility when differences <\/span>within <\/span><\/i>occupations act as a barrier to the advancement of those from lower class origins. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman, “The Class Pay Gap in Higher Professional and Managerial Occupations,” American Sociological Review, 2016 The concept of the \u201cglass ceiling\u201d has become increasingly popular in the American vernacular and a number of spin-off concepts have developed in its wake. The glass ceiling refers to the invisible barrier that keeps women […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[42178,1006,37332,42180,20829],"class_list":["post-8590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inequality","tag-class-ceiling","tag-glass-ceiling","tag-inequality","tag-occupational-inequality","tag-pay-gap"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8590"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8595,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8590\/revisions\/8595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}