The Class Ceiling ― Why It Pays to Be Privileged

The glass ceiling that women and minorities struggle to break through in their careers is widely acknowledged. Yet a barrier that is just as strong, but little known, faces people from disadvantaged class backgrounds. In The Class Ceiling, Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison reveal the pervasiveness of that barrier in elite occupations. Drawing on analysis of jobs and workers in the UK, United States, France, Australia and Norway, they show that the higher ranks of prestigious occupations are drawn almost wholly from the upper classes—and that even when people from working-class backgrounds manage to break through into those jobs, they earn ten to fifteen percent less than their peers. A damning indictment of corporate culture, The Class Ceiling shows starkly the limits of social mobility in contemporary capitalism.

Sam Friedman is assistant professor in sociology at the London School of Economics. He is cofounder of the Stratification and Culture Research Network. Daniel Laurison is assistant professor at Swarthmore College. Previously he was at the London School of Economics and Political Science.