Summary of all the chapters of The Class Ceiling by Friedman & Laurison (2020), except for chapter 1, which is excluded from the mandatory readings as stated in the syllabus.
Summary of Readings Education & Work UvA (weekly readings + class ceiling)
FULL Summary of The Class Ceiling, Friedman & Laurison
Summary, UvA Education And Work (7332A005AY)
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Summary Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The Class
Ceiling.
Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The class ceiling, Introduction.
Weber about privilege: ‘The fortunate man is seldom satisfied with the fact of being fortunate.
Beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his good fortune. He wants to be convinced that
he “deserves” it, and above all that he deserves it in comparison with others… good fortune thus
wants to be legitimate fortune.’
The idea of a meritocratic achievement as legitimation of privilege.
Goal: the book wants to uncover a number of hidden mechanisms that propel some people forward,
and ahead of those from less advantaged backgrounds. Success cannot be explained by merit alone.
Some people have a particular platform to demonstrate their merits.
The premature death of class: in the 1980s and 1990s, politicians and academics proclaimed the end
of class and the start of meritocracy. While there was an increase in the absolute number of people
enjoying upward mobility, the relative chances remained consistently low. Now, there is a growing
consensus that class divisions are hardening and class inequalities are growing.
Social mobility as legitimation of inequality: as long as those from different backgrounds have fair
access to the most desirable jobs and the highest incomes, any inequality in outcome that follows is
acceptable, and possibly even desirable. Social mobility is therefore a key means of justifying
inequality, imbuing inequality with what Goldthorpe has called ‘meritocratic legitimacy’.
The most social closure (= least social mobility) is at the top, specifically within elite occupations.
Working-class = routine and semi-routine jobs such as cleaner, lorry driver, labourer, or who had no
earnings.
Middle-class = secretary, office manager or police officer
Lower professional and managerial occupations = nursing, teaching and social work
Higher professional and managerial occupations = elite occupations that make it to the top class of
the UK government’s NS-SEC.
In contemporary Britain: origins remain strongly associated with destinations.
Symbolic mastery = certain mode of using language, including an elaborate vocabulary and ‘correct’
grammar, a general familiarity with abstraction and theoretical ideas, and also a particular detached,
knowing aesthetic orientation to culture and taste. By expressing their tastes or opinions, the
privileged are able to cash in their embodied cultural capital in multiple settings. Class is something
beneath your clothes, under your skin, in your reflexes, your psyche, at the very core of your being.
Why working-class people may face challenges within elite occupations:
- The glass ceiling the invisible yet durable barriers that these groups face in achieving the
same rewards as white men in the same positions.
- From getting in to getting on although working-class people may get in, they may not go
on to achieve the same levels of success as those from more privileged backgrounds (e.g. not
the same wage)
, This book demonstrates that class-origin differences in career success are not about the character
deficiencies of those from working-class backgrounds. And neither are they adequately explained by
‘natural’ differences in ‘merit’. In fact, much of what is routinely categorized as ‘merit’ in elite
occupations is actually impossible to separate from the ‘following wind’ of privilege.
Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The class ceiling; chapter 2,
Getting on
There is a significant class pay gap in the contemporary UK; those from upper-middle class origins
earn 16% more than those from working-class backgrounds, even in the same set of jobs. The class
pay gap is as large as or larger than the gender and racial-ethnic pay gaps.
How do intersecting forms of disadvantage or advantage play out in top jobs?
Penalties associated with being from a working-class background and being a woman are not
just additive but can also be multiplicative.
Also double disadvantage for individuals with a disability and for people from racial-ethnic
minority groups who have experienced social mobility
Triple disadvantage in elite occupations: working-class women of colour
The biggest pay gap is found at law, medicine and finance. They are highly socially exclusive but also
appear to tilt in favour of the privileged when it comes to progression.
There is no sign of a pay gap for engineering.
Focus in this book:
- Accountancy high pay gap
- Performing arts occupations high pay gap
- Architecture exclusive in terms of access, but no pay gap
- Film and television no class pay gap (at national level at least)
Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. (2020). The class ceiling; chapter 3,
Untangling the class pay gay
Control variables:
- Demographic variables ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, national origin
Partly explains the class pay gap
- Educational attainment
Cannot explain the class pay gap: even when people from working-class origins have the
same level of education as their advantaged colleagues, or go the same privileged university,
or have the same GPA, they still earn significantly less
- Meritocratic amount of hours worked, level of experience, training
Partly explains the class pay gap
- Occupational sorting where in the country to work, what sort of occupation, what sort of
firm
Where people work explains about 23% of the pay gap. Reverse Dick Whittington effect:
rather than the poor moving to the big city to seek their fortune, it is those from privileged
backgrounds who are moving there. Sort of firm explains 18% and size of firm explains 9%.
Together this explain 47% of the class wage gap
In many elite settings the class pay gap is less an issue of equal pay for equal work and more about
the horizontal segregation of the socially mobile into less prestigious departments or functions, and/
or their vertical segregation into lower tiers or positions.
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