According to studies at school and university, academic children have it easier than working-class children, many studies say. According to management consultancy BCG, career advancement is also hampered.
According to a new study, the non-academic family home means a career disadvantage for working-class children. The experts at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) argue in the paper published today that those who are the first in the family to graduate from a university have poorer career opportunities than the children of academics, despite having a degree. This applies both to the entry into the profession and to the further career.
Study author Sebastian Ullrich and his colleagues surveyed 1,125 working people aged 21 to over 60 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Of these, 58 percent were first-time academics whose parents had not studied.
The biggest disadvantage is therefore a social one: only a third of working-class children stated that they had access to important contacts when they started their careers. 61 percent of the participants from academic households said so, almost twice as many.
A course of study is obviously not only useful for one’s own advancement, but also for the next generation. The management consultants identified a lack of time and a lack of knowledge about the importance of internships as one of several other disadvantages for working-class children, which is common before starting an academic career.
Freshman very loyal workers
“First-time graduates have significantly more difficult starting requirements in their profession than their colleagues whose parents have studied,” said Ullrich. “Even after a few years on the job, it’s still not one hundred percent caught up.” Because many older first-time academics with many years of professional experience said that it was more difficult for them to make contacts.
In recent decades, educational scientists have published many studies on the importance of family and social background for learning success at school and university – with the almost universal result that children from better-off families have it easier in the education system.
On the other hand, the question of how social stratification affects the profession after the end of training has been comparatively little researched. The management consultancy investigated this question.
Ullrich argued that it would be worthwhile for employers to promote first-time graduates in the workforce. “For many companies, however, this is a blind spot. You can see the gender of 95 percent of people, but not the social background.” According to the survey, first-time graduates are very loyal employees. “Intrinsic motivation is often significantly higher,” said Ullrich.
Source: Stern
