A Note on Definitions, Terminology and Measurement
Sayer, A. (2005) The Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 72.
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
These are higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations; lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations; intermediate occupations; small employers and own account workers; lower supervisory and technical occupations; semi-routine occupations; routine occupations; never worked and long-term unemployed. See: www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/otherclassifications/thenationalstatisticssocioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010
See for example: Bourdieu, P. (2011) The Forms of Capital (1986). Cultural Theory: An Anthology 1: 81–93; Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Payne, G. (2017) The New Social Mobility: How the Politicians Got it Wrong. Bristol: Policy Press.
City of London Corporation (2021) ‘City of London Jobs’ [online], Available from: https://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s114449/Appendix%204%20The%20City%20Statistics%20Briefing.pdf
Introduction
Ganesh, J. (2018) ‘Banking: the ultimate meritocracy?’ Financial Times [online] 20 July. Available from: www.ft.com/content/6eaee8b0-8b3d-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543
Whitley, R. (1974) ‘The City and Industry’, in P. Stanworth & A. Giddens (eds) Elites and Power in British Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 65–80.
Sutton Trust (2014) Pathways to Banking: Improving Access for Students from Non-Privileged Backgrounds. Research by The Boston Consulting Group for the Sutton Trust. London: The Sutton Trust.
There is considerable debate on whether when using the terms Black and White one, both or either, should be awarded upper case initials. Both are problematic terms as they homogenize and label though one argument in favour of capitalizing Black is to indicate that this is a social category not a natural one, and that the label ‘black’ generates that identity. There is an argument that adopting this approach represents a form of cultural capital and that white should have the lower case initial until dignity and racial equity has been achieved, and in this book, this is the approach I have adopted. For a fuller discussion of these issues see for example: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-capitalize-blackand-white/613159/
Macmillan, L. Tyler, C. and Vignoles, A. (2014) ‘Who Gets the Top Jobs? The Role of Family Background and Networks in Recent Graduates Access to High-status Professions’ Journal of Social Policy, pp. 1-29., 10.1017/S0047279414000634.
Sutherland, R. (2021) ‘The CV trick that guarantees you an interview’. The Spectator [Online] 17 July. Available from: www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-cv-trick-that-guarantees-you-an-interview
Friedman, S., Laurison, D. & Macmillan, L. (2017) Social Mobility, the Class Pay Gap and Intergenerational Worklessness: New Insights from the Labour Force Survey. London: Cabinet Office.
Wilson, H. & Draker, M. (2021) ‘U.K. investment banks pay women 56% of what male colleagues make’. Bloomberg Equality [online] 28 September. Available from: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-28/u-k-investment-banks-pay-women-56-of-what-male-colleagues-make. The banks sampled were HSBC, JP Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs International, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Barclays Bank, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas, NatWest Markets, DP Group.
Golding, T. (2003) The City: Inside the Great Expectation Machine: Myth and Reality in Institutional Investment and the Stock Market. London: Pearson Education.
Empson, L., Muzio, D., Broschak J.P. & Hinings, C.R. (2015) ‘Researching Professional Service Firms: An Introduction and Overview’, in L. Empson, D. Muzio, J.P. Broschak, & C.R. Hinings (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Professional Service Firms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp1–22.
In 2014, The Boston Consulting group estimated that in the UK 30–40 per cent of those earning over £120,000 a year work in financial services. See: Sutton Trust (2014) ‘Pathways to Law’ [online]. Available from: www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/pathwaystobankingreport-24-jan-2014.pdf
See, for example: Engelen, E., Ertürk, I., Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A., Moran, M., … & Williams, K. (2011) After the Great Complacence: Financial Crisis and the Politics of Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
See, for example: https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/the-importance-of-foreign-banks-to-the-city-of-london/
Augar, P. (2006) The Greed Merchants: How the Investment Banks Played the Free Market Game. London: Penguin UK.
Willems, M. (2021) ‘By far best-paid in Europe: CEOs in UK make 759 per cent more than their employees’. CITYA.M. [online] 19 November. Available from: www.cityam.com/ceos-in-uk-are-paid-759-per-cent-more-than-their-employees-british-business-chiefs-make-more-than-anywhere-else-in-europe/
Rothnie, D., & Armitage, J. (2021) ‘Bankers set for biggest bonuses since the financial crisis: who will get the biggest payouts?’ The Times. [Online] Available from: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bankers-set-for-biggest-bonuses-since-the-financial-crisis-who-will-get-the-biggest-payouts-wbm785sh9
Hurley. J (2022) ‘Magic circle law partners conjure up big pay rises’ The Times, January 6th [Online] Available from: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/magic-circle-law-partners-conjure-up-big-pay-rises-jh9zks0rk
Neate, R (2022) ‘We’ve had a run on champagne: Biggest UK bankers bonuses since financial crash.’ The Guardian. [online] 16 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/16/weve-had-a-run-on-champagne-biggest-uk-banker-bonuses-since-financial-crash
Brown, R. (2017) The Inequality Crisis: The Facts and What We Can Do About It. Bristol: Policy Press.
Bottero, W. (2019) A Sense of Inequality. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Stiglitz, J. (2013) The Price of Inequality. London: Penguin UK.
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level. London: Penguin.
See, for example: Stiglitz, J. (2013) The Price of Inequality. London: Penguin UK. Bonica, A., McCarty, N., Poole, K.T. & Rosenthal, H. (2013) ‘Why hasn’t democracy slowed rising inequality?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(3): 103–24.
Sandel, M.J. (2020) The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? London: Penguin UK.
See: Scambler, G. (2018) ‘Heaping blame on shame: “Weaponising stigma” for neoliberal times’. The Sociological Review 66(4): 766–82. Scambler writes of how capitalist executives use their class capital to buy sufficient power and quotes American historian David Landes who suggests that ‘men of wealth buy men of power’.
See, for example: Sayer, A. (2015) Why we Can’t Afford the Rich. Bristol: Policy Press.
For example: www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/cumulative-impact-assessment-report.pdf
Engelen et al., After the Great Complacence, pp 30–31.
Englen et al., After the Great Complacence.
The term BAME is used in the UK to refer to ‘Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic’ communities. This term is problematic as it suggests this is a homogenous category within which people have similar experiences when this is far from the case. It also sets up an overly simplistic binary between people who are ‘BAME’ and those who are white. In the remainder of this book, while recognizing this can be problematic too, I use the term ‘ethnically diverse’ and as I introduce individual participants in my research, wherever relevant I aim to make their ethnicity (as self-identified by them) and related experiences clear, while simultaneously taking care to protect anonymity and confidentiality.
Goldthorpe, J.H. & Mills, C. (2008) ‘Trends in intergenerational class mobility in modern Britain: Evidence from national surveys, 1972–2005’. National Institute Economic Review 205: 83–100.
Payne, G. (2017) The New Social Mobility: How the Politicians Got It Wrong. Bristol: Policy Press.
Milburn, A. (2009) Unleashing Aspiration: The Final Report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions. London: Cabinet Office.
Littler, J. (2017) Against Meritocracy: Culture, Power and Myths of Mobility. London: Taylor & Francis.
McNamee, S.J. & Miller, R.K. (2009) The Meritocracy Myth. Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield, p 19.
See for example: Deephouse, D.L., Bundy, J., Tost, L.P., & Suchman, M.C. (2017). Organizational legitimacy: Six key questions. The Sage Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism 4(2): 27–54.
Fevre, R. (2016). Individualism and inequality: The future of work and politics. London: Edward Elgar Publishing (p158).
McDowell, L. (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. London: John Wiley & Sons.
See, for example: Ashley, L., Duberley, J., Sommerlad, H. & Scholarios, D. (2015) ‘A qualitative evaluation of non-educational barriers to the elite professions’. London: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. [Online] Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549994/Socio-economic_diversity_in_life_sciences_and_investment_banking.pdf
Rivera, L.A. (2015) Pedigree. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rivera, L.A. (2012) ‘Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms’. American Sociological Review 77(6): 999–1022.
Friedman, S. and Laurison, D. (2019) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged. Bristol: Policy Press.
Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class & Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
For example, on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, the Daily Mail reported that nearly half of City workers were dissatisfied with their jobs and just under a third were happy with their work. See: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-475809/Half-workers-Londons-Square-Mile-hate-jobs.html
Engelen et al., After the Great Complacence.
Lawrence, T.B. & Suddaby, R. (2006) ‘Institutions and Institutional Work’, in S. Clegg, C. Hardy, T.B. Lawrence & R.W. Nord (eds) The Sage Handbook of Organization Studies (2nd edn). London: SAGE Publications, pp 215–54.
Puwar, N. (2001) ‘The racialised somatic norm and the senior civil service’. Sociology 35(3): 651–70.
Sayer, A. (2015) Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, p 19.
Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press, p 5.
Chapter 2
Ganesh, J. (2018) ‘Banking: the ultimate meritocracy?’ Financial Times [online] 20 July. Available from: www.ft.com/content/6eaee8b0-8b3d-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543
Porter, London, A Social History, p 1.
Michie, R.C. (2016) The City of London: Continuity and Change, 1850–1990. London: Springer.
McDowell, L. (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. London: John Wiley & Sons.
Michie, The City of London.
Norfield, T. (2016) The City: London and the Global Power of Finance. London: Verso Books.
Thompson, P. (1997) ‘The pyrrhic victory of gentlemanly capitalism: The financial elite of the City of London, 1945–90’. Journal of Contemporary History 32(3): 283–304.
Michie, R.C. (1998) ‘Insiders, outsiders and the dynamics of change in the City of London since 1900’. Journal of Contemporary History 33(4): 547–71, p 549.
Augar, P. (2001) The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism. The Rise and Fall of London’s investment banks. London: Penguin. pp xiv.
Ibid.
McDowell, Capital Culture. See also: Nicholls, D. (1988) ‘Fractions of capital: The aristocracy, the city and industry in the development of modern British capitalism’. Social History 13(1): 71–83.
Chapman, S.D. (1986) ‘Aristocracy and meritocracy in merchant banking’. The British Journal of Sociology 37(2): 180–93; Chapman, S. & Chapman, S.D. (2005) The Rise of Merchant Banking. London: Taylor & Francis.
Thompson, ‘The pyrrhic victory’.
Michie, ‘Insiders, outsiders’.
Thompson, ‘The pyrrhic victory’.
Spiegelberg, R. (1973) The City: Power without Accountability. London: Blond and Briggs, p 20.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
Michie, ‘Insiders, outsiders’, p 565.
Spiegelberg, The City.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
Golding, T. (2003) The City: Inside the Great Expectation Machine: Myth and Reality in Institutional Investment and the Stock Market. London: Pearson Education.
Ibid., p 34.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, p xiii.
McDowell, Capital Culture, p 44.
Eliade, M. (1963) Myth and Reality. New York: Harper & Row.
Ibid.
McDowell, Capital Culture.
Ibid.
Thompson, ‘The pyrrhic victory’.
Beaverstock, J.V. & Smith, J. (1996) ‘Lending jobs to global cities: Skilled international labour migration, investment banking and the City of London’. Urban Studies 33(8): 1377–94, p 1380. See also: Blanden, M. (1986) ‘Bigger role for foreign banks in the city’. The Banker, November, pp 69–124.
Beaverstock & Smith, ‘Lending jobs to global cities’. See also: Leyshon, A. & Thrift, N.J. (1992) Liberalisation and consolidation: The Single European Market and the remaking of European financial capital’. Environment and Planning A 24(1): 49–81.
Reid, M. (1988) All-Change in the City: The Revolution in Britain’s Financial Sector. London: Springer, p 71.
Augar, P. (2006) The Greed Merchants: How the Investment Banks Played the Free Market Game. London: Penguin UK.
Kynaston, The City of London.
Lisle-Williams, M. (1984) Merchant banking dynasties in the English class structure: Ownership, solidarity and kinship in the City of London, 1850–1960. British Journal of Sociology 35: 333–62.
Michie, ‘Insiders, outsiders’.
Ibid. pp 555–69.
Hall, S. & Appleyard, L. (2011) ‘Trans-local academic credentials and the (re)production of financial elites’. Globalisation, Societies and Education 9(2): 247–64.
Spiegelberg, The City, p 20.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
Dezalay, Y. (1990) ‘The Big Bang and the law: The internationalization and restructuration of the legal field’. Theory, Culture & Society 7(2–3): 279–93.
Kynaston, The City of London.
French, S., Leyshon, A. & Thrift, N. (2009) ‘A very geographical crisis: The making and breaking of the 2007–2008 financial crisis’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2(2): 287–302, p 293.
Pagano, M. (1999) ‘A matchless talent pool’. Financial News, 14 June.
Golding, The City, p 14.
Smith, A.D. (1992) International Financial Markets: The Performance of Britain and its Rivals (Vol. 45). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McDowell, Capital Culture.
Kynaston, The City of London, p 706.
Ibid.
Sutton Trust (2014) ‘Pathways to Law’ [online]. Available from: www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/pathwaystobankingreport-24-jan-2014.pdf
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, p 308.
Larson, M.S. (1979) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Vol. 233). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Engelen et al., After the Great Complacence, p 180.
Kynaston, The City of London, p 706.
‘Tim Nice But Dim’ was a character played by British comedian Harry Enfield in a series of sketch shows in the 1990s. He was a caricature of an upper-middle-class man whose privileged background provided opportunities despite limited intellect.
Kynaston, The City of London.
Quoted in Reid, All-Change in the City, p 82.
Ibid., p 72.
Ibid.
Ibid., p 76.
See, for example: McDowell, Capital Culture.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, p 19.
Noon, M., Blyton, P. & Morrell, K. (2013) The Realities of Work: Experiencing Work and Employment in Contemporary Society. London: Macmillan International Higher Education, p 34.
Augar, The Greed Merchants, p 153.
Ho, K. (2009) Liquidated. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p 29.
Ho, K. (2009) Liquidated. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p 74.
See: www.ucas.com/corporate/news-and-key-documents/news/record-percentage-young-people-are-university
New universities refers to former polytechnics or other institutions given university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, or an institution that has been granted university status since 1992 without receiving a royal charter. New universities often seen as lower status than old universities which includes the Russell Group.
Sutton Trust (2014) Pathways to Banking: Improving Access for Students from Non-Privileged Backgrounds. Research by The Boston Consulting Group for the Sutton Trust. London: The Sutton Trust.
Tuttle, B. (2019) ‘The top universities for getting an investment banking job’. eFinancialCareers [Online] 18 February. Available from: www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/finance/top-50-universities-getting-front-office-investment-banking-job
See: Amis, J.M., Mair, J. & Munir, K.A. (2020) ‘The organizational reproduction of inequality’. Academy of Management Annals 14(1): 195–230.
Jones, A. (1998) ‘(Re)producing gender cultures: Theorizing gender in investment banking recruitment’. Geoforum 29(4): 451–74.
This might be seen as an instance of statistical discrimination where, as Lauren Rivera explains, ‘employers infer the ability of a specific individual based on their perceptions of the average ability of the social group to which that person belongs.’ In this example, hiring managers believe that on average a Russell Group graduate is more competent than applicants educated elsewhere. See: Rivera, L. (2020) ‘Employer Decision Making’. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 215–32.
Ho, Liquidated, p 67.
See: McDowell, L. (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. London: John Wiley & Sons. Hall, S. & Appleyard, L. (2011) ‘Trans-local academic credentials and the (re) production of financial elites’. Globalisation, Societies and Education 9(2): 247–64.
Duff, A. (2017) ‘Social mobility and fair access to the accountancy profession in the UK: Evidence from Big Four and mid-tier firms’. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 30(5): 1082–110.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
The ‘General Certificate of Secondary Education’ or GCSE is an academic qualification in a particular subject, in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, at the age of 16. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead.
Payne, G. (2017) The New Social Mobility: How the Politicians Got it Wrong. Bristol: Policy Press
See, for example: Saunders, P. (1996) Unequal but Fair: A Study of Class Barriers in Britain. London: Civitas; Saunders, P. (2002) ‘Reflections on the meritocracy debate in Britain: A response to Richard Breen and John Goldthorpe’. The British Journal of Sociology 53(4): 559–74.
Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ibid., p 123.
Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge, p 43.
Thiele, T., Pope, D., Singleton, A., Snape, D. & Stanistreet, D. (2017) ‘Experience of disadvantage: The influence of identity on engagement in working class students’ educational trajectories to an elite university’. British Educational Research Journal 43(1): 49–67.
School children are eligible for Free School Meals if they are in receipt of benefits or have a family income below a certain threshold which suggests deprivation.
Reay, Miseducation, p 118.
Boliver, V. (2013) ‘How fair is access to more prestigious UK universities?’ The British Journal of Sociology 64(2): 344–64.
In his book Social Class in the 21st Century, Mike Savage explains that elite professions such as law and finance recruit from within their own class networks and that the more economic capital is associated with a specific job, the more likely it is that it draws from privileged backgrounds.
Pollard, E., Hirsh, W., Williams, M., Buzzeo, J., Marvell, R., Tassinari, A. … & Ball, C. (2015) ‘Understanding employers’
Pollard et al, ‘Understanding employers’, p 63.
Ibid., p 87.
Dawson, I., Jackson, A. & Rhodes, M. (2006) Graduate Skills and Recruitment in the City. London: City of London.
For example: Purcell, K., Morley, M. & Rowley, G. (2002) Employers in the New Graduate Labour Market: Recruiting from a Wider Spectrum of Graduates. London: Council for Industry and Higher Education.
See, for example: Sackett, P.R., Zhang, C., Berry, C.M. & Lievens, F. (2021) ‘Revisiting meta-analytic estimates of validity in personnel selection: Addressing systematic overcorrection for restriction of range’. Journal of Applied Psychology.
For example: Garavan, T., Morley, M., Heraty, N., Lucewicz, J. & Suchodolski, A. (1998) ‘Managing human resources in a post-command economy: personnel administration or strategic HRM’. Personnel Review 27(3): 200–12.
Pollard et al., ‘Understanding eEmployers’, p 87.
Rivera, L.A. (2015) Pedigree. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Brown, P. & Scase, R. (1994) Higher Education and Corporate Realities: Class, Culture and the Decline of Graduate Careers. London: Routledge.
Fevre, ‘Individualism and Inequality’, p 161
Amis et al., 2018.
Deephouse, D.L. & Suchman, M. (2013) ‘Legitimacy in organizational institutionalism’. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T.B. Lawrence & R.E. Meyer (eds) The Sage Handbook of Organizational institutionalism. London: Sage, p 60.
Payne, The New Social Mobility, p 142.
Gwyther, M. (2016) ‘Forget brown shoes: Investment banks are fiercely meritocratic’. Management Today [Online] 2 September. Available from: www.managementtoday.co.uk/forget-brown-shoes-investment-banks-fiercely-meritocratic/food-for-thought/article/1407668
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
Friedman, S. and Laurison, D. (2019) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged. Bristol: Policy Press.
Macdonald, K.M. (1995) The Sociology of the Professions: London: Sage.
Payne, G. (2017) The New Social Mobility: How the Politicians Got it Wrong. Bristol: Policy Press.
Collins, R. (2019) The Credential Society. Columbia: Columbia University Press.
Brown, P. (1990) ‘The “third wave”: Education and the ideology of parentocracy’. British Journal of Sociology of Education 11(1): 65–86. See also: Fevre, 2003.
See: Goodhart, D. (2020) Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
For example: Blanden, J. & Macmillan, L. (2014) Education and intergenerational mobility: Help or hindrance? Working Paper 14–01. London: Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics.
Deresiewicz, W. (2015) Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Lukianoff, G. & Haidt, J. (2019) The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure. New York: Penguin Books, p 113.
Connor, H. & Shaw, S. (2008) Graduate Training and Development: Current Trends and Issues. Journal of Education and Training 50: 357–65.
Dawson, I., Jackson, A. & Rhodes, M. (2006) Graduate Skills and Recruitment in the City. London: City of London.
Ashley, L., Birkett, H., Duberley, J. & Kenny, E. (2016) ‘Socio-economic diversity in life sciences and investment banking’. London: Cabinet Office [Online]. Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549994/Socio-economic_diversity_in_life_sciences_and_investment_banking.pdf
Rivera, L.A. (2020) ‘Employer decision making’. Annual Review of Sociology 46: 215–32, p 219.
Larson, M.S. (1979) The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis (Vol. 233). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H. & Axelrod, B. (2001) The War for Talent. Harvard, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Dawson et al., Graduate Skills.
See, for example: Rivera, 2020.
Gara, A. (2016) ‘JPMorgan agrees to pay $264 million fine for ‘Sons And Daughters’ hiring program in China’. 17 November [online]. Available from: www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-pay-264-million-fine-for-sons-and-daughters-hiring-program-in-china/?sh=eea135256881
Clarke, P. (2013) ‘How 5K can buy you a financial services internship’. eFinancialCareers [online] 8 May. Available from: www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2013/05/students-paying-to-secure-a-leg-up-into-a-finance-job
Neely, M.T. (2022). Hedged Out: Inequality and Insecurity on Wall Street. Oakland: University of California Press.
McLaughlin, K. (2014) ‘Top graduate jobs at law firms, banks and consultancies go to pupils from just 10 elite private schools’. Daily Mail [online] 7 May. Available from: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4481662/Top-graduate-jobs-pupils-10-elite-schools.html
Macmillan, L. Tyler, C. & Vignoles, A. (2014) ‘Who Gets the Top Jobs? The Role of Family Background and Networks in Recent Graduates Access to High-status Professions’. Journal of Social Policy 1–29, 10.1017/S0047279414000634.
Butcher, S. (2016) ‘The ideal banker: An academically average frat boy’. eFinancialCareers [online] 5 January. Available from: www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/01/ideal-profile-for-banking?_ga=2.19772152.1774100177.1634914372-1327232064.1603270758
Butcher, S (2016) ‘Another study found that people in banking aren’t that intelligent’. eFinancialCareers [online] 5 March. Available from: www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2018/03/how-intelligent-do-you-need-to-be-to-work-in-banking-and-finance
See for example: DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983) ‘The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields’. American Sociological Review 147–160.
Sommerlad, H. (2011) ‘Minorities, merit, and misrecognition in the globalized profession’. Fordham Law Review 80: 2481–512.
Ashley, L. & Empson, L. (2013) ‘Differentiation and discrimination: Understanding social class and social exclusion in leading law firms’. Human Relations 66(2): 219–244.
Ashley, L. & Empson, L. (2017) ‘Understanding social exclusion in elite professional service firms: Field level dynamics and the “professional project”’. Work, Employment and Society 31(2): 211–229.
Oliver, C. (1991) ‘Strategic responses to institutional processes’. Academy of Management Review 16(1): 145–79, p 174.
Ahmed, S. (2012) On Being Included. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p 129.
Chapter 5
Scott, J. (1991) Who Rules Britain? Cambridge: Polity Press, p 169.
Hanlon, G. (1998) Lawyers, the State and the Market: Professionalism Revisited. London: Springer.
Brown, P. (1995) ‘Cultural capital and social exclusion: Some observations on recent trends in education, employment and the labour market’. Work, Employment and Society 9(1): 29–51, p 41.
Dawson, I., Jackson, A. & Rhodes, M. (2006) Graduate Skills and Recruitment in the City. London: City of London.
Ashley, L., Duberley, J., Sommerlad, H. & Scholarios, D. (2015) ‘A qualitative evaluation of non-educational barriers to the elite professions’. London: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. [Online] Available from: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549994/Socio-economic_diversity_in_life_sciences_and_investment_banking.pdf
Ibid.
Friedman, S. and Laurison, D. (2019) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged. Bristol: Policy Press.
Swartz, 1997, p 18.
McDowell, L. (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. London: John Wiley & Sons, p 139.
See Hanlon 1994, p 116.
Hutton, W. (1996) The State We’re In. London: Random House.
Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press.
Taylor, E. (2021) ‘“No fear”: Privilege and the navigation of hierarchy at an elite boys’ school in England’. British Journal of Sociology of Education 42(7): 935–50.
Augar, P. (2006) The Greed Merchants: How the Investment Banks Played the Free Market Game. London: Penguin UK, p 16.
Lisle-Williams, M. (1984) Merchant banking dynasties in the English class structure: Ownership, solidarity and kinship in the City of London, 1850–1960. British Journal of Sociology 35: 333–62.
Ibid.
Spiegelberg, R. (1973) The City: Power without Accountability. London: Blond and Briggs, p 79.
Engelen, E., Ertürk, I., Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A., Moran, M., … & Williams, K. (2011) After the Great Complacence: Financial Crisis and the Politics of Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 143. See also: Kynaston, D. (2002) The City of London: A Club No More, 1945–2000 (Vol. 510). London: Random House, pp 318–25.
Augar, P. The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
Thompson, P. (1997) ‘The pyrrhic victory of gentlemanly capitalism: The financial elite of the City of London, 1945–90’. Journal of Contemporary History 32(3): 283–304.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism.
Kynaston, The City of London.
Luyendijk, J. (2015) Swimming with Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers (Vol. 4). London: Guardian Faber Publishing, pp 54–55.
McDowell, Capital Culture, p 168.
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
Meier, L. (2016) ‘Dwelling in different localities: Identity performances of a white transnational professional elite in the City of London and the Central Business District of Singapore’. Cultural Studies 30(3): 483–505.
Fevre, R. (2003). The New Sociology of Economic Behaviour. London: SAGE.
Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge.
Ashley, L. & Empson, L. (2013) ‘Differentiation and discrimination: Understanding social class and social exclusion in leading law firms’. Human Relations 66(2): 219–44.
See, for example: Sieghart, M.A. (2021) The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It. London: Random House.
See, for example: Friedman and Laurison, Class Ceiling.
Fanshawe, S. (2021) The Power of Difference: Where the Complexities of Diversity and Inclusion Meet Practical Solutions. London: Kogan Page, p 35.
Urwin, R. (2021) ‘Why are men more likely to be promoted than women?’ Sunday Times 18 March. Available from: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-are-men-more-likely-to-be-promoted-than-women-p7ztwf660
Sommerlad, H. (2011) ‘Minorities, merit, and misrecognition in the globalized profession’. Fordham Law Review 80: 2481–512.
Ashcraft, K.L. (2013) ‘The glass slipper: “Incorporating” occupational identity in management studies’. Academy of Management Review 38(1): 6–31.
Ibid., pp 7–8.
See, for example: Roberts, J., & Coutts, J. A. (1992) ‘Feminization and professionalization: a review of an emerging literature on the development of accounting in the United Kingdom’. Accounting, Organizations and Society 17(3–4): 379–95; Bolton, S.C. & Muzio, D. (2007) ‘Can’t live with ‘em; Can’t live without ‘em: gendered segmentation in the legal profession’. Sociology 41(1): 47–64.
See, for example: Sutton Trust (2014) Pathways to Banking: Improving Access for Students from Non-Privileged Backgrounds. Research by The Boston Consulting Group for the Sutton Trust. London: The Sutton Trust.
Friedman and Laurison, Class Ceiling.
For example, see: Savage, Social Class.
Spiegelberg, The City.
Augar, The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, p 100.
Ibid., p 40.
Levinson, S. (1993) ‘Identifying the Jewish lawyer: Reflections on the construction of professional identity’. Cardozo Law Review 14: 1577–78, p 1578.
Wilkins, D.B. (1998) ‘Fragmenting professionalism: Racial identity and the ideology of bleached out lawyering’. International Journal of the Legal Profession 5(2–3): 141–73.
Based on performance and in her fascinating work on this subject, Katerina Hecht has demonstrated that pay-setting techniques in elite firms play an important role, which allows those in the top 1 per cent to legitimate their incomes as merit based. See: Hecht, K. (2021) ‘It’s the value that we bring’: performance pay and top income earners’ perceptions of inequality. Socio-Economic Review.
Young, I.M. (2011) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chapter 6
Clarke, P. (2020) ‘Under 10% of top city bankers are women: It’s still very testosterone fuelled’. Financial News [online] 20 August.
HM Treasury (2021) ‘Women in Finance Charter: Five Year Review assessing the impact of the Charter on female representation across the financial services industry’. London: HM Treasury.
Hoque, K. & Noon, M. (2004). ‘Equal opportunities policy and practice in Britain: Evaluating the “Empty Shell” Hhypothesis’. Work, Employment and Society 18(3): 481–506.
Tomei, M. (2003) ‘Discrimination and equality at work: A review of the concepts’. International Labour Review 142: 401.
Kumra, S., Manfredi, S. & Vickers, L. (2012) Managing Equality and Diversity: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
See: Barmes, L. & Ashtiany, W.S. (2003) ‘The diversity approach to achieving equality: Potential and pitfalls’. Industrial Law Journal 32(4): 274–96.
Oswick, C. & Noon, M. (2014) ‘Discourses of diversity, equality and inclusion: Trenchant formulations or transient fashions?’ British Journal of Management 25(1): 23–39.
Süß, S. & Kleiner, M. (2008) ‘Dissemination of diversity management in Germany: A new institutionalist approach’. European Management Journal 26(1): 35–47.
For example, see: Prügl, E. (2012) ‘“If Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters…”: Gender and myth in the aftermath of the financial crisis’. International Political Sociology 6(1): 21–35.
Smedley, T. (2014) ‘The evidence is growing: There really is business case for diversity’. Financial Times [online] 15 May. Available from: www.ft.com/content/4f4b3c8e-d521-11e3-9187-00144feabdc0
For example, see: Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. & Robson, K. (2000) ‘In the name of the client: The service ethic in two professional services firms’. Human Relations 53(9): 1151–74.
Vaughan, S. (2014) ‘Going public: Diversity disclosures by large UK law firms’. Fordham Law Review 83: 2301.
For example, see: Sommerlad, H. & Ashley, L. (2015) ‘Diversity and inclusion in professional service firms’, in L. Empson, D. Muzio, J. Broschak & B. Hinings (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Professional Service Firms. Oxford: Oxford university Press, pp 452–75.
See, for example: Duncan, E. (2022) ‘Women’s lower salaries reflect career choices.’ The Times [online] 14 April. Available from: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/womens-lower-salaries-reflect-career-choices-d5z9bwk2m
For example, see: Thornton, P.H., Ocasio, W. & Lounsbury, M. (2012) The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand.
Kumra, S. (2014) ‘Busy doing nothing: An exploration of the disconnect between gender equity issues faced by large law firms in the United Kingdom and the diversity management initiatives devised to address them’. Fordham Law Review 83: 2277.
Oliver, C. (1991) ‘Strategic responses to institutional processes’. Academy of Management Review 16(1): 145–79, p 153.
The Lawyer, 10 September 2007.
See: Legal Services Board (2021) ‘Legal regulation to promote diversity and inclusion: Literature review’. London: Legal Services Board.
See, for example: Thompson, B. (2021) ‘Law firms resist pressure on gender pay gap reporting’. Financial Times [online] 19 March. Available from: www.ft.com/content/1a0819b6-286a-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
I am a member of the latter’s ‘working group’, the activities of which and advice feeds into the work of the Taskforce.
See: Dobbin, F. & Kalev, A. (2019) ‘Are diversity programs merely ceremonial? Evidence-free institutionalization’. [Online] Available at: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/41288171/78157839.pdf?sequence=1
Tyler, I. (2013) ‘The riots of the underclass?: Stigmatisation, mediation and the government of poverty and disadvantage in neoliberal Britain’. Sociological Research Online 18(4): 25–35.
Fevre, R. (2003) The New Sociology of Economic Behaviour. London: SAGE.
See for example: Meyerson, D. E. (2008) Rocking the boat: How tempered radicals effect change without making trouble. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Bottero, W. (2019) A Sense of Inequality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield International, p 12.
Tyler, I. (2020) Stigma: The Machinery of Inequality. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
See: Tyler, I. (2015) ‘Classificatory struggles: Class, culture and inequality in neoliberal times’. The Sociological Review 63(2): 493–511.
Engelen, E., Ertürk, I., Froud, J., Johal, S., Leaver, A., Moran, M., … & Williams, K. (2011) After the Great Complacence: Financial Crisis and the Politics of Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 37–38.
Amis, J., Munir, K. & Mair, J. (2017) Institutions and Economic Inequality. SAGE Publications.
Blair, 1999: see: www.britishpoliticalspeech.org/speech-archive.htm?speech=205
Beck, U. (2004) Ulrich Beck – Johannes Willms: Conversations with Ulrich Beck. Trans. M. Pollak. London: Polity Press with Blackwell Publishing.
Sayer, A. (2005) The Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 13.
Sayer, The Moral Significance of Class.
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
Chapter 7
Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.
This chapter is closely based on the following paper: Ashley, L. (2021) ‘Organisational social mobility programmes as mechanisms of power and control’. Work, Employment and Society, 0950017021990550.
Savage, M., Bagnall, G. & Longhurst, B. (2001) ‘Ordinary, ambivalent and defensive: Class identities in the Northwest of England’. Sociology 35(4): 875–92.
In sociological and policy literature there has been significant and often heated debate on orientations of white working class people towards education and work, and whether people in this group suffer disadvantage relative, for example, to people who are ethnically diverse. In recent times this debate has taken place on especially divisive terms and it is not the purpose of this book to specifically engage in this conversation, not least because my research predominantly explores young people’s experiences as they encounter higher education and the labour market, and is less focused on factors which inform earlier decisions. I will explain in this chapter and those that follow that organizational
See, for example: Jacobs, K. (2003) ‘Class reproduction in professional recruitment: examining the accounting profession’. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 14(5): 569–96.
In 1992, Michel Lamont pointed out that children growing up in professional homes, therefore, have understandings of work that include the idea that working long hours is both expected and is viewed as a virtuous practice. See: Lamont, M. (1992) Money, Morals, and Manners: The Culture of the French and the American Upper-middle Class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
See: Hanley, L. (2016) Respectable: The Experience of Class. London: Penguin UK.
See, for example: Hoggart, R. (1957) The Uses of Literacy. London: Transaction Publishers.
Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press, p 113.
Ibid., p 108.
Bottero, W. (2019) A Sense of Inequality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield International.
See, for example: Foucault, M. (1991) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; Foucault, M. (1997) ‘On genealogy and ethics: An overview of work in progress’, in M. Foucault and P.D. Rainbow (eds) Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Vol. 1: Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth. New York: Penguin Books, pp 253–80.
Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.
See, for example: Townley, B. (1993) ‘Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its relevance for human resource management’. Academy of Management Review 18(3): 518–45; Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. & Robson, K. (2018) Making up Accountants: The Organizational and Professional Socialization of Trainee Chartered Accountants. London: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1979) The History of Sexuality, Vol. I: The Will to Knowledge. London: Allen Lane.
Du Gay, P. (1996) Consumption and Identity at Work. London: SAGE.
Paisey, C., Paisey, N., Tarbert, H., & Wu, B. (2020) ‘Deprivation, social class and social mobility at Big Four and non-Big Four firms’. Accounting and Business Research 50(1): 61–109 (p 100).
Spohrer, K., Stahl, G. & Bowers-Brown, T. (2018) ‘Constituting neoliberal subjects? “Aspiration” as technology of government in UK policy discourse’. Journal of Education Policy 33(3): 327–42, p 336.
See: Willis, Learning to Labour, p xiii.
Berlant, L.G. (2011) Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Willis, Learning to Labour, p 169.
Brown, R. (2017) The Inequality Crisis: The Facts and What We Can Do About It. Bristol: Policy Press.
Piketty, T. (2020) Capital and Ideology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Chapter 8
Goldthorpe, J.H. (1980) Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Friedman, S. (2012) ‘Cultural omnivores or culturally homeless? Exploring the shifting cultural identities of the upwardly mobile’. Poetics 40(5): 467–89.
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Penguin UK.
Lamont, M., Silva, G.M., Welburn, J., Guetzkow, J., Mizrachi, N., Herzog, H. & Reis, E. (2016) Getting Respect. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p 4.
In 2013, Mortiz Erhardt, a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern was found dead in his flat having suffered an epileptic fit after working there. See, for example: www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/22/moritz-erhardt-merrill-lynch-intern-dead-inquest
Goffman, E. (1986) Stigma: Notes on the Management of a Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sue, D.W., Capodilupo, C.M., Torino, G.C., Bucceri, J.M., Holder, A.M.B., Nadal, K.L. & Esquilin, M. (2007) ‘Racial microaggressions
Paton, K. (2018) ‘Beyond legacy: Backstage stigmatisation and “trickle-up” politics of urban regeneration’. The Sociological Review 66(4): 919–34.
Tyler, I. (2018) ‘Resituating Erving Goffman: From stigma power to Black power’. The Sociological Review 66(4): 744–65.
See: Exley, D. (2019) The End of Aspiration? Social Mobility and Our Children’s Fading Prospects. Bristol: Policy Press.
Wacquant, L., Slater, T. & Pereira, V.B. (2014) ‘Territorial stigmatization in action’. Environment and Planning A 46(6): 1270–80.
Reay, D. (2017) Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes. Bristol: Policy Press.
See, Milkie, M.A., Warner, C.H. & Ray, R. (2014) ‘Current theorizing and future directions in the social psychology of social class inequalities’, in J.D. McLeod, E.J. Lawler & M. Schwalbe (eds) Handbook of the Social Psychology of Inequality, Dordrecht: Springer, pp 547–73.
Ngai, S. (2005) Ugly Feelings (Vol. 6). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp 338–39.
Shildrick, T. (2018) ‘Lessons from Grenfell: Poverty propaganda, stigma and class power’. The Sociological Review 66(4): 783–98, p 66.
Savage, Social Class, p 337.
Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Sayer, A. (2005) The Moral Significance of Class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 163.
Savage, Social Class.
McDowell, L. (1997) Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City. London: John Wiley & Sons.
Skeggs, B. (2004) Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge.
Young, I.M. (2011) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p 123.
McDowell, Capital Culture, p 34.
Skeggs, B. & Wood, H. (2012) Reacting to Reality Television: Performance, Audience and Value. London: Routledge, p 283.
Tyler, Stigma, p 29.
Ibid., p 17.
Sandel, M.J. (2020) The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? London: Penguin UK.
Scambler, G. (2018) ‘Heaping blame on shame: “Weaponising stigma” for neoliberal times’. The Sociological Review 66(4): 766–82.
Skeggs, Class, Self, Culture.
Chapter 9
Skeggs, B. Becoming Respectable.
Pache, A.C., & Santos, F. (2013) Embedded in hybrid contexts: How individuals in organizations respond to competing institutional logics. In Institutional logics in action, part B. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class & Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: SAGE.
Sayer, Moral Significance of Class.
Bottero, W. (2019) A Sense of Inequality. London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Hanley, L. (2016) Respectable: The Experience of Class. London: Penguin UK.
Mills, C.W. (2000/1956) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reay, D. (2015) ‘Habitus and the psychosocial: Bourdieu with feelings’, Cambridge Journal of Education. 45(1): 9–23, p 13.
Tuttle, B. (2019) ‘The top universities for getting an investment banking job’. eFinancialCareers [Online] 18 February. Available from: www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/finance/top-50-universities-getting-front-office-investment-banking-job
Butcher, S. (2017) Goldman Sachs juniors complain that the firm is hiring mediocrities. Available at: whttps://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2017/01/how-hard-is-it-to-get-into-goldman-sachs
Chapter 10
Markovits, D. (2019) The Meritocracy Trap. London: Penguin.
Appiah, K.A. (2018) The Myth of Meritocracy: Who Really Gets What They Deserve? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/19/the-myth-of-meritocracy-who-really-gets-what-they-deserve
Payne, G. (2017) The New Social Mobility: How the Politicians Got it Wrong. Bristol: Policy Press, p 68.
Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House, p 161.
For example, see: Friedman, S. and Laurison, D. (2019) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to Be Privileged. Bristol: Policy Press; Rivera, L.A. (2015) Pedigree. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ahmed, S. (2012) On Being Included. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, p 10.
Young, I.M. (2011) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
See: Dobbin, F., Schrage, D. & Kalev, A. (2015) ‘Rage against the iron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnel reforms on diversity’. American Sociological Review 80: 1014–44; Kalev, A. (2009) ‘Cracking the glass cages? Restructuring and ascriptive inequality at work’. American Journal of Sociology 114: 1591–643; Kalev, A., Dobbin, F. & Kelly, E. (2006) ‘Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies’. American Sociological Review 71: 589–617.
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2010) The Spirit Level. London: Penguin, p 255.
Willis, Learning to Labour.
Wilkinson and Pickett, The Spirit Level, p 272.
Sayer, A. (2015) Why we Can’t Afford the Rich. Bristol: Policy Press. (See in particular chapter 22 ‘So what now?’.)
Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Burawoy, M. (2019). Symbolic Violence: Conversations with Bourdieu. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
See, for example: Amis, J., Brickson, S., Haack, P. & Hernandez, M. (2021) ‘Taking inequality seriously’. Academy of Management Review 46(3): 431–39.
