Class Advantage in White-collar Organizations: An Investigation of Parental Income, Work Resources, and Job Success

Substantial research shows that people with lower-income parents face difficulties entering professional, white-collar organizations, finding that employers are less likely to hire them even when their qualifications are equal to their counterparts with higher-income parents. Still, many overcome their economic disadvantages and get employed, but little research has examined whether and how economic backgrounds continue to shape work experiences and outcomes after entry. This study investigates a theoretical model that merges two different literatures: one demonstrating that people reliably signal their social class background to others, and another demonstrating that supervisors provide more important work resources to subordinates that they like, trust, and think are competent. I propose that growing up with higher-income parents leads employees to develop higher social class reputations—observers’ collective perceptions of a person’s social class. Class reputations are then positively associated with two important work resources: perceived supervisor support and job autonomy. Finally, I propose that employees who perceive more supervisor support and job autonomy are more satisfied and productive at work. I tested this model in the field among 124 business school interns in similar jobs using a multisource, time-lagged survey. Results indicated that interns with higher-income parents were perceived as higher class. Contrary to my predictions, class reputations were unrelated to any work outcomes. Exploratory analyses focused on (a) associations with parental education and (b) two alternative mediators: social class signals (behaviors that provide information about a person’s class background) and social class anxiety (apprehension or worry about one’s class rank). Results tentatively suggest that parental education predicted supervisor support, autonomy, and job satisfaction, but not job performance. Further exploratory mediation analyses tentatively suggest that class signals explained why interns with more educated parents perceived more supervisor support, and in turn experienced higher job satisfaction. Finally, combining income and education into a composite tentatively suggested a dual-path model whereby interns with upper-class parents experience higher job satisfaction because they (a) send upper-class signals and in turn, perceive more supervisor support and (b) are less anxious about their class rank. New insights into class advantages in white-collar organizations are discussed.Ph.D