Abstract
How do class-advantaged individuals with more social capital fail to obtain greater economic capital than class-disadvantaged individuals with less? Although stratification scholars often assume that the class-advantaged convert their greater social capital into greater economic capital, social capital researchers regularly find no wage benefit from its possession or use. Drawing on the case of college students entering the midtier business labor market, this study uncovers how overlooked properties of fields contribute to this phenomenon. Fields that hide information about who can help, how to get ahead, and which jobs pay the most neutralize the class-advantaged’s social capital. In these fields, the class-advantaged do not know whom to ask for help, and without knowledge of how or where to get ahead, their connections often give them ineffective advice and lead them into low-paying as well as high-paying positions. By highlighting the role of hidden information, this study challenges assumptions about the straightforward conversion of social into economic capital and shows how the class-advantaged’s seeming advantages break down.
How do class-advantaged job seekers with more social capital fail to acquire more economic capital than similarly situated class-disadvantaged job seekers with less? Stratification scholars often assume that the class-advantaged maintain their economic advantage through their social capital; from Weber’s ([1922] 1978) theory of social closure to Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of capital exchange, sociologists have positioned unequal access to social capital as a key way that class inequality is reproduced.
Although there are situations in which class-stratified social capital helps the advantaged stay ahead (Lin 1999; Rivera 2015), there are reasons to question the extent to which it does so regarding earnings, especially among the college-educated. Stratification scholars have largely ignored a finding from the social capital literature: despite Granovetter’s ([1974] 1995) seminal findings, evidence that job seekers who have and use more social capital receive higher earnings is equivocal at best, with many studies failing to find a positive relationship between social capital use and earnings (Bridges and Villemez 1986; Grayson 2004; Krug and Rebien 2012; Marsden and Hurlbert 1988; Mouw 2003, 2006; Pellizzari 2010). Moreover, despite wide class background differences in college-educated job seekers’ social capital (Hardie 2022; Lin 1999; Stuber 2011), there is no or only a small class background earnings gap among the college-educated without a graduate degree (Chetty et al. 2017; Ford 2019; Torche 2011).
Drawing upon Bourdieu’s field theory (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) and a case study of one labor market, I argue that one reason the class-advantaged’s greater social capital does not pay off is due to the structure of some fields. Fields that hide information about who serves as useful social capital and how and where to get ahead sever the link between social capital and economic gains. In these fields, the class-advantaged do not know which of their personal connections are able and willing to help them, and their personal connections do not know how to advise them to receive specific jobs or which jobs will maximize their pay. Hidden information also prevents the class-advantaged from using institutional social capital to benefit themselves more. With hidden information about which institutionally-connected hiring agents will help them, how they evaluate applicants, and which offer high pay, the class-advantaged also cannot strategically use the institutional social capital they more frequently draw upon to gain an economic edge. This leaves them in the same position as the class-disadvantaged in the same institutions: without the information they need to strategize about how to get ahead, and without connections who know how to help them.
Class and the Exchange of Social for Economic Capital
According to theory, the class-advantaged maintain an economic advantage by exchanging their greater social capital for greater economic capital. Bourdieu (1986) formalized this perspective as part of his work on class reproduction. To him, the class-advantaged possess more social capital, or more ties to people who have the potential to help them get ahead. By leveraging these personal connections, they secure high-paying positions and maintain their economic advantage.
Bourdieu (1984, 1986) conceptualized two types of exchanges of social for economic capital. Direct exchanges occur when the class-advantaged exchange their social capital for economic capital, using their connections to secure a high-paying position. Indirect exchanges involve using social capital to acquire human or cultural capital. In this scenario, the class-advantaged gain insider information about what knowledge and styles gatekeepers reward, then display them to secure greater economic capital. In each type of exchange, the class-advantaged’s social capital gives them an earnings advantage.
Despite this theory’s prominence, research on whether social capital possession and use garners higher earnings is equivocal at best. Although some studies have shown a positive association between social capital and earnings (Granovetter [1974] 1995; Kmec and Trimble 2009; Lin and Ao 2008), this relationship is often weak, short lived, and/or likely spurious (Marmaros and Sacerdote 2002; McDonald 2015; Mouw 2003, 2006; Simon and Warner 1992). More often, scholars find no relationship between social capital possession or use and higher wages. For instance, Bridges and Villemez (1986) found that “job search [whether applicants use social capital or other means] uniquely explains less than one-tenth of one percent of the variance in income” (p. 578). Marsden and Hurlbert (1988) similarly concluded, “The net effects of the social resource variables here can be summarized simply: there are none” (p. 1047). Mouw (2003) declared, “There is little evidence that using contacts to find work results in higher wages” (p. 868). Subsequent studies have corroborated that the possession and use of social capital rarely leads to higher wages (Antoninis 2006; Behtoui 2016; Delattre and Sabatier 2007; Franzen and Hangartner 2006; Grayson 2004; Green, Tigges, and Diaz 1999; Greenberg and Fernandez 2016; Krug and Rebien 2012; Obukhova and Lan 2013). This finding appears to apply to college students as well: despite class-advantaged students’ having more social capital than their class-disadvantaged peers, they tend to receive similar average earnings (Chetty et al. 2017; Ford 2019; Torche 2011).
Research on how the class-advantaged do not earn higher pay through their connections has focused on how the class-disadvantaged catch up. This research moves beyond Bourdieu’s focus on personal social capital to highlight institutional social capital, or the connections that institutions broker (Coleman 1998; Fischer 2010; Rosenbaum et al. 1999). Research shows that these ties can compensate for disadvantaged groups’ fewer personal ties to employers, allowing them access to jobs and wages they may not otherwise receive (Fischer 2010; Rosenbaum et al. 1999).
Yet this line of work does not fully resolve the puzzle of how the class-advantaged do not use their social capital to outearn class-disadvantaged individuals with similar credentials. Among those in the same institution, class-advantaged job seekers have access to the same institutional social capital, and, in fact, tend to interact with them more frequently, feel more at ease around them, and know more about how to meet their hiring standards (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013; Jack 2024; Rivera 2015; Stuber 2011; Walpole 2003). Moreover, although the class-disadvantaged tend to rely primarily on institutional contacts, the class-advantaged supplement these sources with personal connections to professionals with access to high-paying positions (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013; Cornwell and Cornwell 2008; Lin 1999; Rivera 2015; Stuber 2011). Theoretically, these disparities in the use of institutional and personal social capital should lead to disparities in earnings.
Other research examines how job seekers do not benefit from the social capital they possess. Some studies show that capital exchanges fail when job seekers do not ask their personal or institutional connections for help or when these connections refuse to help them (Marin 2012; Obukhova and Lan 2013; Smith 2005). However, these insights do not reveal how the class-advantaged fail to outearn the class-disadvantaged despite their greater social capital. The class-advantaged typically ask more professionals for help and have broader networks (Jack 2019; Yee 2016). Less affected when some connections do not help them, they should still be able to use their social capital to earn more.
Another approach highlights the role fields play in blocking the class-advantaged’s ability to benefit from capital exchanges. Fields are social arenas with positions, stakes, and rules of the game (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). They determine what counts as capital, its exchange rate, and the rules of the game for how capital can be exchanged. Although fields tend to be set up to favor the class-advantaged, there are instances when they do not. Bourdieu (1988) argued that the advantaged are unable to successfully exchange their capital when hysteresis occurs: when fields change so quickly that the class-advantaged’s intuition for how to stay ahead has yet to adapt. Others contend that the advantaged are unable to use their capital to stay ahead when field insiders define them as illegitimate outsiders (Duffy, Binder, and Skrentny 2010) or when the field’s rules of the game are complex (Lareau, Evans, and Yee 2016). However, in each case, the class-advantaged experience only temporary or minimal setbacks. Hysteresis is short lived, happening only until the class-advantaged adjust; individuals defined as outsiders move onto fields where they are insiders; the class-advantaged learn complex rules of the game faster than the class-disadvantaged and thus retain their advantage. These approaches then do not illuminate the routine and durable ways that fields prevent the class-advantaged from capitalizing on their social capital. For that, we need to examine another property of fields.
Hidden Information
I argue that the class-advantaged cannot use their social capital to outearn the class-disadvantaged when a specific property of fields is in place: hidden information about who serves as useful social capital, how to get ahead, and which jobs pay the most. Labor markets operate as fields, and many hide this information. In some labor markets, this information is hidden from everyone; there is opacity around who serves as useful social capital, how to receive any particular job, and what each job pays. Other factors sometimes compound this opacity. Labor markets with high levels of variation in hiring processes and pay contribute to hiding information by making it hard for actors to generalize their knowledge about one position to another. Labor markets that are dynamic do the same as any knowledge that actors gather may soon be out of date. Job seekers and their connections will also struggle to gain a comprehensive sense of the field in large labor markets that lack a clear hierarchy; in such fields, it is difficult to learn what jobs in the field pay the most and how to get them.
Labor markets and other fields that hide information in these and other ways contribute to severing the link between social and economic capital. Hidden information about who is authorized and willing to hire prevents the class-advantaged from knowing which of their personal and institutional ties can and will help them. Hidden information about how to obtain a particular position makes it difficult for the class-advantaged’s connections to give them accurate advice. Hidden information about which firms pay employees the most for each type of job prevents the class-advantaged’s connections from placing them only in high-paying positions and prevents class-advantaged job seekers from only using institutional connections that do so. Thus, one reason that the class-advantaged fail to outearn the class-advantaged despite their greater social capital is that hidden information makes it difficult for them to know how to use it to get ahead.
The Case: The Midtier Business Labor Market
This article centers on one field: the midtier business labor market. This labor market comprises college-educated business students and graduates from nonelite universities who are in or seeking business jobs. It represents roughly a quarter of the college-educated workforce (Carnevale, Cheah, and Hanson 2015). Its opaque practices, internal variation, dynamism, and large size prevent people from all classes from having high levels of information about who can help them get ahead, how to do so, and which firms pay the most for each type of job.
In this field, students encounter several forms of hidden information. Information about who can help them find a job is concealed. Companies vary by whether and which employees they allow to refer new hires (Lin and Ao 2008), and they rarely advertise whether they have referral programs or which employees are authorized and willing to hire (Gershon 2017). They also vary and change their practices regarding whether they hire from networking events or informational interviews, and hide their practices for doing so. Some of this information is hidden because it is not known in advance; some decisions are spontaneous.
Information about how to receive each job is also partly hidden. Although hiring agents use some standard criteria (Gray and Koncz 2024), they also exercise considerable discretion in evaluating résumés, conducting interviews, and assessing them (Cappelli 1999, 2015; Selingo 2016). Each hiring agent’s tastes vary so much that “even the most beautifully formatted resume [can] be rejected for reasons the job applicant could never anticipate” (Gershon 2017:86). Many hiring agents also create interview questions contemporaneously, vary questions across candidates, and use idiosyncratic and dynamic criteria to evaluate responses (Gershon 2017; Judge, Higgins, Cable 2000; Selingo 2016). The variation and dynamism can be so great that different hiring agents use opposing standards to hire for the same job, and do so for similar jobs at different companies as well. As one researcher put it, “What would make someone a successful or appealing job candidate for one company might lead another company to reject the same person” (Gershon 2017:80). To receive a position, job seekers must then present themselves as each hiring agent prefers. However, hiring agents do not advertise their varied and often changing preferences (Gershon 2017; Judge et al. 2000; Selingo 2016), leaving them hidden from job seekers and their connections.
In this labor market, information about pay is also hidden. There is substantial variation in what companies pay similar workers who do similar jobs (Avent-Holt and Tomaskovic-Devey 2014; Barth et al. 2016; Song et al. 2015), and uncovering which companies pay more or less for the same job is difficult. Until recently, only 13 percent of job ads for college-educated professionals posted wages (Deming and Kahn 2018), and many employers withhold salary details until they extend an offer (Finlay and Coverdill 2002; Rynes and Boudreau 1986). Pay is also hidden within many companies (Rosenfeld 2017), so students’ connections are unlikely to know how much new hires will be paid. Web sites such as Glassdoor provide pay information of unknown reliability (Widdicombe 2018), and companies’ pay structures can change without public notice, so any information job seekers or their connections gain may soon be outdated. Students who attend nonelite public universities are also mostly locked out of the elite labor market, where wages are more often known and higher (Davis and Binder 2019; Rivera 2015). In this way, students can learn that certain types of jobs typically pay more than others, but within a job type, it is difficult for them and their connections to learn which jobs are high or low paying.
Students entering this labor market also have access to considerable institutional social capital. Universities, and business schools in particular, often form their own connections to employers. These employers advertise with and recruit from these institutions; they post job ads on institutional job boards, attend university-sponsored career fairs, and lead professionalization workshops (Davis and Binder 2016; Moss-Pech 2021). There is often a homology between the status of the university and the employers who recruit from it, but also variation in the pay offered by these institutional connections (Davis and Binder 2019). Although many business schools prepare their students to obtain business jobs by teaching them general professional norms, students still encounter institutional connections that use varied hiring practices, offer varied pay, and hide information about each (Streib 2023). This field then offers a place to understand how hidden information matters for the class-advantaged’s attempts to convert their greater social capital into greater economic capital.
Data and Methods
To understand how the class-advantaged’s social capital fails to yield them an economic advantage, I draw upon multiple data sources: interviews with college students trying to enter the midtier business labor market, interviews with hiring agents in this labor market, observations of career fairs and professionalization events, and content analyses of job ads as well as students’ cover letters and résumés. Interviews with hiring agents and analyses of job ads reveal the degree of hidden information in the field. As much of this information is known and reviewed earlier, I focus on the interviews with students here.
I recruited college students by asking the career center staff and diversity officer at a selective but not elite public university to e-mail an announcement about the study to all seniors in the undergraduate business program. I also announced the study in students’ courses and clubs, telling them it seeks to understand how college students find jobs. From those who signed up, I included all students except accounting majors who operate in a different labor market, those outside the ages of 21 to 24 years, foreign students, students planning to go straight to graduate school, and those who did not fit the definitions of class-advantaged and class-disadvantaged used in this research. At this university, students enrolled in the business school without going through an extra admissions process.
This article is focused on class-advantaged students. There is no agreed-upon definition of class advantage. I define it as having two parents with at least a bachelor’s degree. For comparison purposes, I also interviewed class-disadvantaged students, defined as those whose parents do not have a bachelor’s degree. Parents’ occupations typically aligned with their educational attainment, with all class-advantaged parents having at least one professional parent and few class-disadvantaged students having parents in professional jobs.
I first interviewed students at the beginning of their senior year. Initial interviews covered their university and major choice, career expectations, work and internship history, how they learned to write cover letters and résumés, with whom and how they networked, and their plans for finding a job. For each relevant topic, I asked if anyone helped them and, if so, what help they provided. I then sent them a monthly questionnaire asking whom they talked to about jobs, what they talked about, if they looked for job openings and where, if and what jobs they applied to and how they learned of them, if they attended a job interview, and if they were offered a job. After each time they interviewed for a job, I reinterviewed them and again asked about their social capital use. I repeated this process until they accepted a job offer. I took a prospective approach because doing so relies less on students’ memories than a retrospective approach, recruiting students before they know their earnings minimizes the chance that only high-earning students participate, and learning their plans in advance facilitated asking about what did not work as well as what did. As this approach yielded only 30 respondents, I also interviewed students at the end of their senior years about the same topics. If they had not yet received a job, I sent them monthly questionnaires and interviewed them after each job interview and after they accepted an offer. The final sample included 62 students, 37 from class-advantaged backgrounds and 25 from class-disadvantaged backgrounds.
All interviews occurred between 2014 and 2016, a time with low unemployment rates for college graduates (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024). Perhaps as a consequence, all but one respondent found a professional job within a year of graduating. Class-disadvantaged students earned a mean salary of $47,540, while class-advantaged students earned a mean salary of $44,289. These earnings are self-reported but align with findings from tax records that students from different class backgrounds who attend the same university earn similar amounts (Chetty et al. 2017). As Table 1 shows, most interviewees were white, with students of color more represented among class-disadvantaged students. Men constituted 45 percent of the sample, while women accounted for 55 percent. Respondents were spread across business subfields; belonging to a subfield involved taking four required courses in that area, though students took at least one class in every subfield. In all subfields with more than three respondents, mean wages ranged from $42,116 to $50,611. The largest gap within subfields was larger than the gap between them; within subfields, earnings gaps ranged from $30,000 to $58,000. As Table 1 also shows, class-advantaged respondents had higher grade point averages and completed slightly more internships than class-disadvantaged respondents, suggesting that their inability to capitalize on their social capital was not due to low levels of human capital.
Respondent Demographics.
Note: GPA = grade point average; IT = information technology.
Some respondents specialized in multiple subfields, making the number of subfields add up to more than the number of respondents.
This respondent did not hold a job a year after graduating from college.
The table reports means. The median salary is $48,000 for class-disadvantaged students and $45,000 for class-advantaged students.
I analyzed the transcribed interviews using NVivo. I coded every instance in which respondents sought a connection or spoke to an existing one. I used subcodes to mark who helped them, what help they provided, and what results they received. Two steps must occur for students’ connections to assist them in obtaining a high-paying job: they must help students secure a job, and that job must be high paying. Therefore, I focus the analysis on each step.
Findings
Class-advantaged respondents used more personal and institutional social capital than class-disadvantaged students. However, hidden information prevented them from knowing who to ask for help, how to get ahead, and which jobs paid the most, thereby limiting their ability to turn their greater social capital into greater pay. In the following sections, I show how each form of hidden information stymied the class-advantaged’s ability to use social capital effectively, then show how the class-disadvantaged received similar earnings despite using less social capital.
Using Social Capital When Information About Who Can Help is Hidden
Class-advantaged respondents tended to have many personal connections to professionals and felt at ease making new ones. They said things like, “Reaching out to other people, asking them [is how I’ll find a job].” However, information on who could and would help them was hidden, so they reached out to many people who did not. As many of their connections failed to get them a job, they also failed to get them high pay.
Chloe
1
(class-advantaged) is one respondent who reached out to her connections but did not receive a job from them, let alone a high-paying position. She said of a position her aunt suggested she apply to: “I’m almost 100% positive I will get that [job] because my aunt is the VP of sales there.” She received an interview but not an offer. Jim (class-advantaged), the son of a state senator and a teacher, thought a family friend would give him a job: “I know the president of the company. I don’t want to call her and say, ‘Hey, I put in an application,’ but I might have to.” He called several times but never heard back. Lucy’s father, an Internet technology salesman, set up an interview for her. Lucy (class-advantaged) did not receive the job. She explained, I had a few connections, but I didn’t know anyone in that office, and I felt like so many of the candidates there knew people. Someone’s brother was there, someone’s sister-in-law. . . . Everyone there had some type of connection. Mine was the least connected.
Likewise, James (class-advantaged), the son of an information technology consultancy owner and a teacher, hoped his friend, an intern, would convince his manager to interview him for a job. He did not. Sally (class-advantaged) hoped her friend, a recent graduate, would help her receive a job at her firm. She applied and talked to her friend but was not offered the position.
Class-advantaged respondents also tended to reach out to people their personal connections knew. But with information hidden about who could and would help them, they reached out to many people who did not help them receive a job, let alone a high-paying one. Tyler (class-advantaged), the son of a financial worker, reached out to his classmates’ parents. It did not lead him to a high-paying job.
I also went to a private school in [City], [School Name], so a lot of people who run the companies around here, they have kids. So we all know each other.
How do you make use of your high school networks?
If I know someone whose dad is at [Big Bank] and I need to apply for a job there, I’ll usually reach out to him or her and be like, “Hey, would your dad mind getting lunch with me and we could talk about opportunities at [that Big Bank]?” . . . I usually go through the person that I know within the family, and depending on the person, sometimes I’ll just reach straight out to the individual and ask them for lunch. It’s the easiest way to get someone with a free meal.
Have you done that often?
Yeah. I try to do it pretty regularly, even if it’s not about a job, just keeping up with people and hearing what’s going on in their life. Whenever you keep up that relationship, you never know when you might need it down the road, or they might keep up with you down the road.
Is there anything else you’ve gotten out of those relationships?
No.
Indeed, none of Tyler’s friends’ parents got him a job.
Levi (class-advantaged) also reached out to people his personal connections knew. Not knowing who could and would help him, he approached many people who did not: I utilized my parents’ networks. They own their own business. My dad was in corporate for 30-plus years. My mom is a real estate agent. So they come across a lot of people in multiple industries doing real estate. So first utilizing their connections as a freshman or sophomore, trying, “Hey, can I work for you over the summer while I’m at home?” Different small things like that.
Levi kept talking to his personal connections’ contacts as he continued his job search, but did not receive an internship or job through his personal network.
Some class-advantaged respondents also sought new personal connections who might help them. But with information hidden about who could and would help them, they mostly approached people who did not offer them a job, including a high-paying one. Alice (class-advantaged), the daughter of two doctors, shared, I’ve tried doing some things like randomly e-mailing people or calling people. I’ve done that, where I ask people, “Hey, I’m looking for a job,” or “I want to learn more about your job.” I’ve done that. And I don’t feel like cold calling particularly helps that much with finding a job.
Owen (class-advantaged), the son of a deceased surgeon and a college-educated nurse, also contacted people he didn’t know: Honestly, ninety percent of it is reaching out. Not necessarily cold calling, but cold emailing, and having a quick story about yourself and why you want to get on the phone, and why you think you’d be a good banker. And just sending it out, trying to get as many people as possible on the phone.
Not knowing who could and would help him, Owen received some responses but no interviews or jobs. Ryan (class-advantaged), the son of a sales director and grandson of a business school dean, used LinkedIn to connect with new people: I try to find someone that I’m closely connected to, preferably a second connection. . . . If they’re a sales manager, they’re probably going to be the ones who might be doing the hiring, so I try to reach out to those people.
Using this method, Ryan talked to a vice president, a hiring manager, and others at companies where he wanted to work. None led him to a job; they did not help him receive high pay.
Class-advantaged students also regularly met employers on campus, taking advantage of their institution’s social capital. However, information was hidden about whether meeting employers outside of formal career fairs mattered for getting a job, and, if it did, who might hire them. Without knowing who could help them, class-advantaged students again talked to many people who didn’t offer them a job, including a high-paying one. Dylan (class-advantaged), the son of a finance worker and an accountant, talked to many employers who attended his university’s hiring events. He did not know if it would help, and found it didn’t: “Never actually works, as far as I can tell, but that’s what I did.” Heather (class-advantaged), the daughter of an upper level manager and a stay-at-home mother, had the same experience: I really started practicing more networking in [a university group], I’m in that. That’s a good tool. I haven’t gotten anything out of it—I mean like a job. I’ve gotten a lot out of it, but not a job.
Jason (class-advantaged), the son of a computer engineer and a teacher, tried using his professors’ contacts. Without knowing who could help, he connected with many people who didn’t: “Usually, I’ll ask my professor and say, ‘Hey, I noticed that you’re connected with this person [on LinkedIn].’ And just say, ‘Hey, can I connect with them?’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh, cool.’” Asked if anything came of these connections, Jason replied, “No. I would say no.” Of course, some class-advantaged students reached out to people who did help them. But hidden information about who could and would help them left many reaching out only to people who didn’t.
Using Social Capital When Hiring Processes and Evaluation Criteria Are Hidden
Many class-advantaged respondents asked their connections for help preparing for interviews. In effect, they asked their social capital for the cultural and human capital that could get them ahead. However, information about each hiring agent’s process and evaluation criteria is hidden. Not knowing the process or criteria, their personal connections often offered unhelpful advice. Their advice then did not help them receive jobs, let alone high-paying ones.
Mason (class-advantaged) asked his father, a C-level officer, to help him prepare for an interview. Unable to know how Mason’s interviewers would evaluate him, his father gave him advice that backfired. Mason relayed his father’s advice: “He was like, because he’s hired a lot of people in his day, ‘Don’t be nervous.’ What was the other stuff? Oh, don’t try to go too much into detail.” Mason followed his father’s advice. After the interview, he was told he did not receive the position because he gave too few details.
With interview questions hidden, other class-advantaged respondents also received unhelpful advice. William (class-advantaged) asked his father, a human resources executive, for help preparing for an interview. Even with his years in human resources, his father did not know what William’s interviewers would ask. William recalled what happened: My dad helped. He was like, “They may ask you these type of questions, so go ahead and plan.” And I did prepare for those questions. And then when I got to the interview, the questions were not anything like those. It wasn’t that bad, but I was definitely scrambling, and I knew I didn’t get it.
Claire (class-advantaged) talked to her father, a hiring manager for financial positions, to prepare for an interview with a bank. Claire explained: He helped me with a lot of the ETFs [exchange-traded funds] and the S&P 500 and mutual funds, just more specific knowledge of each, and what [the company I’m interviewing with] really offers and what their website didn’t have listed.
Claire was not asked questions about the knowledge her father provided. It did not help her receive a job, let alone a high-paying one.
John (class-advantaged) had a similar experience. He applied for a position with an insurance company.
My dad actually works for a competitor. So he’s worked in the insurance industry his whole life, so I knew a little bit going in.
What types of things do you think you knew from your dad?
How people go about applying for life insurance and the different stages that are involved with it. He’s taught me that a lot of those insurance companies or financial services companies, they do life insurance, but they also do some things like annuities and some other things that I still am kind of confused about. Just the background knowledge of what my dad does helped me.
Did that come up in the interview at all?
I don’t think it did. No.
Class-advantaged students also regularly met employers through their university. Given that information was hidden about these employers’ hiring processes, they often did not know how to meet their hiring standards. For instance, Logan (class-advantaged), the son of a marketer and accountant, interviewed with a company that recruited from his university. Information about what they would ask was hidden, and he found himself unprepared to meet their expectations. He explained, I thought I had prepared enough . . . I did not prepare enough. . . . I had no idea where to even start when they gave me the case. I went in with too many expectations. I thought the case was going to be a paragraph long. It was four pages long, but with numbers and things I was just not expecting. I got so flustered that it was just embarrassing. I walked away knowing I didn’t get that one.
Of course, class-advantaged students did meet some employers’ hiring criteria. With information hidden about how they would be evaluated, they tended to do so despite their personal connections’ advice and their own strategy, rather than because of them.
Using Social Capital When Information about Pay Is Hidden
Although information was hidden about who could or would help students find a job, sometimes class-advantaged respondents happened to talk to someone who helped them receive a position. However, for these students’ connections to pay off, they must not only help them receive a job, but a high-paying one. As pay is often hidden, students did not know who could help them obtain a high-paying position. With hidden pay, their personal connections also could not purposefully place them in high-paying positions. Thus, when class-advantaged respondents’ connections did help them find a job, they led them into low-paying as well as high-paying positions.
Cody (class-advantaged), the son of a chiropractor and business owner, relied on his networks to search for a job: “Network, pretty much. Everybody says it. Everybody, everybody, everybody. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Cody golfed with his father’s friends, contacted his brother’s friend’s recruiter brother-in-law, talked to his high school friend’s father, met recruiters who visited his classes, stayed in touch with a professional he met at a football game, and attended a mentoring group run by a company where he wanted to work. He also talked to his girlfriend’s father, who agreed to arrange a position for him at a company where he formerly worked. Cody did not know the pay of the job his girlfriend’s father could get him, and given that pay is often secret internally and across companies, Cody’s girlfriend’s father could not know how the job’s pay compared with jobs like it. The job he helped Cody receive paid $18.67 an hour. Working 50 weeks a year for 40 hours a week, Cody would earn just over $37,000 a year, less than most respondents and less than others in his subfield of operations, who earned an average of $48,375 a year.
Natalie (class-advantaged) also used social capital to find a job. It was a strategy she had used to receive an internship. Her father, a senior manager, took her to a networking event where she was the only college student. He broadcast over the loudspeaker that Natalie was looking for an internship, and someone approached her and offered her one. When it came time to find a job, Natalie networked again. She attended an event where her roommate’s mother, a CEO, was speaking. There, she was introduced to a woman who looked at her résumé, interviewed her, and offered her a job, which Natalie accepted. However, Natalie’s roommate’s mother’s connection did not help her receive a high-paying position. It paid $35,000 a year, less than the average salary in the sample and less than the average in her subfield of marketing.
Grace (class-advantaged), the daughter of a bank founder and a fundraiser, also networked extensively. As president of a professionalization club, she interacted with hiring agents; she also participated in her university’s networking events, attended a conference of business professionals, set up informational interviews, and found several internships through her personal and institutional connections. When seeking full-time employment, Grace initially approached the company where she last interned; they said they were laying off workers and not hiring. She applied elsewhere but did not receive a position quickly. She then attended a networking event hosted by a company where her roommate’s mother and sorority sister worked. She applied online and told her roommate’s mother, who then asked the human resources department to look at Grace’s résumé. While this was happening, the company hosted another networking event. Grace attended, and another friend introduced Grace to the employees. With the support of her connections, Grace interviewed and received the job. Grace did not know in advance what the job would pay, and, given that pay in other companies is hidden, her connections likely did not know if she could earn more doing similar work at other companies. They helped Grace receive $40,000 annually, a salary less than the sample median and less than other respondents doing similar work.
Josh (class-advantaged), the son of a teacher and stay-at-home mom, used institutional social capital to find a job. However, just as with using personal connections, he did not know which institutional connections had access to high-paying positions. He attended a university-sponsored career fair, where he did not know the pay of the jobs he might receive. After talking to a representative at a firm he did not know would be attending, he was invited for an interview. With the interview questions hidden, Josh found himself momentarily flatfooted: “I didn’t really expect those questions, to be honest, so it caught me off guard.” He recovered and received then accepted the job offer. He didn’t know it when he applied, but the job paid $32,200. Using institutional social capital, he became one of the lowest paid respondents in the sample and in his marketing subfield.
Of course, not all class-advantaged respondents’ personal or institutional social capital led them into low-paying positions. Brooke (class-advantaged), the daughter of a professional salesman and a physical therapist, grew up in a family she called “business-oriented.” They taught her that “building relationships is fundamental to business.” Accordingly, she networked at dean’s receptions, met the daughter of a CEO in her desired industry at a bar, and tried to meet as many people as she could in college. Still, it was her father who helped her find a job. He worked in the industry she wanted to enter and told her that a particular company had a strong training program. He arranged an interview for her; she interviewed and received the job. Neither she nor her father knew what it would pay in advance. Brooke was nicely surprised: “They offered me more money than what I was looking for.” She was offered $51,000 a year, more than respondents’ average pay and more than other marketing concentrators received. Without knowing it, Brooke’s father helped her land a high-paying position. Likewise, Jenny (class-advantaged), the daughter of a physician and a stay-at-home mother, attended a university-sponsored career fair. She warmed up by practicing with representatives of a company she wasn’t interested in. The conversation went well, which led to an internship and then a job offer. She hadn’t known it when she approached them, but the job paid $58,000 a year, more than the average respondent and more than the average of those in her operations subfield. By accident, she stumbled into a high-paying position.
How the Class-Disadvantaged Receive High-Paying Positions
While class-advantaged respondents typically had many personal connections to professionals, class-disadvantaged respondents tended to have and make few. Avery (class-disadvantaged), the daughter of a truck driver and hair stylist, said, “It’s only my aunt I know that has gone to college, and she’s a teacher. I didn’t know anybody that was even remotely in that field, so there wasn’t anybody that I really talked to.” Ben (class-disadvantaged) also knew few professionals who could help him: “My mom graduated high school but nothing beyond that. She works a retail job, not professional. Dad dropped out in 8th or 9th grade. . . . So, for obvious reasons, I don’t consult them for work advice.” When asked if he talked to others about jobs, he indicated that he didn’t: “I’ve done a lot of reading online.” Sean (class-disadvantaged), the son of a factory worker and a nurse, shared, “As far as talking about getting a job, there hasn’t been a lot of communication with anyone.”
Class-disadvantaged respondents also made less use of institutional social capital than their class-advantaged counterparts. Shawna (class-disadvantaged), the daughter of a military worker and a receptionist, did little networking: “I don’t usually network with class speakers. . . . I don’t usually do that, even though it’s always encouraged in class, even with [the professionalization club I’m in]. I don’t usually talk to the people afterward. Honestly, I hate networking.” Amy (class-disadvantaged), the daughter of two factory workers, also avoided meeting institutional connections who could help her find a job: When we see corporations, when we see people in the professional field, we’re so afraid to talk to them. I’ll see them, and I’ll see the opportunity, but then I don’t go. I don’t go talk to them. I’ll just walk away.
Connor (class-disadvantaged), the son of a medical biller and small business owner, did little to meet professionals, too, including those his university brought to campus: “I haven’t gone to any networking events.”
Class-disadvantaged respondents’ low levels of personal and institutional social capital did not prevent them from receiving high-paying positions. Although they tended to avoid networking with professionals who visited their university, they often used other forms of institutional social capital: their university’s online job board and career fairs. Using just these methods and the general lessons about hiring that all respondents received as part of their business school training, some landed high-paying positions. For instance, Peter (class-disadvantaged), the son of a small cleaning business owner and a stay-at-home mother, conducted his job search with little social capital. Asked if his parents helped him with his job search, he replied, “They just wanted me to get one, honestly.” His parents’ friends tried to help, but only read his horoscope. He did little to use institutional social capital as well. Asked if he networked, he said: “Networking, I mean, just getting to know my professors more. Going to office hours and things like that. . . . That was the only kind of networking that I had done.” Still, he used some of the institutional social capital his university brokered: he received an interview after applying for jobs on the university’s online job board and attending a career fair. A friend offered him advice about interviewing, but as his friend was unemployed, he “took it in one ear and out the other.” He interviewed for the job without gathering advice from anyone else. At the interview, he became flustered by not knowing how to answer some of the math questions and asked the interviewer how to reach the correct answers. She told him that they were not looking for people who knew the answers, but people who asked for help. Accidentally meeting her standards, he was offered the position. He would earn $58,000 a year, more than most respondents and more than the average respondent who concentrated in marketing.
Karen (class-disadvantaged), the daughter of a truck driver and a real estate agent, also applied for jobs with little personal or institutional social capital. Her parents did not help her, and while she joined a group where she was assigned a professional mentor, she did not develop a relationship with him. She explained, I really didn’t know how to interact with the professional. He worked at [Company], and I was like, “Okay, he’s this big businessman, and I don’t even know what I want to do yet, so what am I supposed to talk to him about?” It was just intimidating.
She continued, “I don’t really like networking, to be honest.” Without forming many professional connections, Karen entered her job search without their help: “I don’t like asking for things. I want to be able to do it on my own.” She did not even inform others about her job search: “I didn’t really tell anybody about it. . . . I didn’t even tell my parents about it at first because I didn’t want it to turn out to be a no.” Karen’s lack of professional connections did not prevent her from receiving a high-paying position. She saw a job ad on her university’s job board, went to the interview without asking for advice, then answered standard behavioral questions, questions about her résumé, and completed a case study similar to one she had practiced in a class. She was offered the position. She took it and received a yearly salary of $50,000, higher than the sample average and about the average for students who shared her concentration in human resources.
Of course, class-disadvantaged students who applied to advertised positions and attended interviews without receiving advice also did not receive each offer and entered some low-paying positions. With hidden information about how to get ahead, they did not always know how to present themselves to hiring agents. And with hidden pay, they did not know whether they were applying to high or low-paying positions. This put them in the same situation as class-advantaged respondents: with or without connections, they did not know how each hiring agent would evaluate them or which jobs in their desired area offered high pay.
Discussion
It goes against conventional wisdom to ask why the class-advantaged’s greater social capital does not consistently translate into greater economic capital. Stratification scholars tend to assume that it does (Lareau et al. 2016; Owens 2014). However, research on social capital reveals mixed evidence for this assumption, with many studies finding that social capital possession and use does not lead to higher pay (Bridges and Villemez 1986; Delattre and Sabatier 2007; Franzen and Hangartner 2006; Grayson 2004; Krug and Rebien 2012; Marsden and Hurlbert 1988; Mouw 2003; Obukhova and Lan 2013; Pellizzari 2010).
Drawing on a case study of college students applying to enter the midtier business labor market, I demonstrate that the conversion of greater social capital into greater economic capital breaks down because of the structure of the field. In fields where information is hidden, the class-advantaged’s ability to convert greater social capital into greater economic capital is hindered. Hidden information about who can help, what jobs pay the most, and how to secure them prevents the class-advantaged from knowing who can help them and prevents their connections from knowing how to give them an economic advantage. Hidden information also prevents the class-advantaged from knowing how to use institutional social capital to get ahead, undermining their usual ability to benefit more than the class-disadvantaged from these connections.
Many labor markets share similar properties and likely limit the payoff to social capital in similar ways. Many labor markets hide information about pay, hiring criteria, and who can effectively help job seekers find jobs (Cappelli 1999, 2015; Rosenfeld 2017; Selingo 2016). Many are also large, internally varied, dynamic, and opaque, and thus make it difficult for actors to gain thorough and current knowledge of the field that they can use to get ahead. Many universities also provide institutional social capital (Davis and Binder 2016), but with hidden information regarding how these connections hire and what they pay, students cannot know how to use it to obtain high pay. Moreover, the findings likely extend to more experienced workers, who also operate in fields with hidden information. Thus, the findings likely apply to many midtier labor markets, including those for college-educated nurses, engineers, and scientists. Still, not all labor markets contain the same degree of hidden information. Wages are more often posted in elite and low-wage labor markets, and more information about how to obtain specific elite jobs is posted online (Deming and Kahn 2018; Rivera 2015), making these processes less relevant there.
The non-payoff to social capital occurs in ways past scholars have not identified. Scholars have argued that institutional social capital can compensate for the class-disadvantaged’s lack of personal social capital (Fischer 2010; Rosenbaum et al. 1999), but have not identified how hidden information hinders the class-advantaged’s ability to benefit more from it. Studies of the neutralization of social capital focus on individuals’ decisions not to ask for help and their connections’ decisions not to give it (Marin 2012; Smith 2005); this study shows that social capital conversions can be neutralized even when individuals ask for and receive help. Moreover, scholars have argued that fields limit the effectiveness of capital exchanges via hysteresis, defining insiders as illegitimate outsiders, and using complex rules (Bourdieu 1988; Duffy et al. 2010; Lareau et al. 2016). However, each of these aspects of fields limits the effects of the class-advantaged’s social capital temporarily or incompletely. Hidden information more thoroughly reduces the class-advantaged’s ability to benefit economically, as they and their connections cannot access the knowledge needed to get ahead.
Taken together, the findings challenge scholars’ assumptions about capital exchanges. Too often, scholars assume that the class-advantaged’s social capital has intrinsic value (Lareau et al. 2016; Owens 2014), ignoring that fields shape whether capital is useful (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). Scholars also too often assume that the class-advantaged’s connections know how to help them (Lin 1999, 2000), which is not possible in all fields. Too often, scholars also conflate the types of help connections provide, not separating the ability to help others find jobs from the ability to help others find high pay (Lin 1999, 2000).
Moreover, the findings offer insights into a similar puzzle: why do the class-advantaged, who have more human and cultural capital, fail to receive higher pay than the class-disadvantaged, who have less? Although hardly the only factor, hidden information likely plays a role. Students entered a field in which hiring agents’ criteria and selection procedures were opaque, dynamic, and varied, leaving students from all classes uncertain about what human and cultural capital they needed to present to receive each job. Additionally, hidden information prevented students from knowing where to exchange their human and cultural capital for high pay. Given these forms of hidden information, some class-advantaged students acquired and displayed forms of human and cultural capital that hiring agents did not reward, and some exchanged their human and cultural capital for lower rates than they could have received for doing similar work for a different firm. Hidden information may then blunt the effectiveness of many types of capital exchanges.
The findings also contribute to understanding equalizing mechanisms more broadly. They suggest that it is opacity, not transparency, that equalizes. Such a finding builds on other work. Jackson and Buckner (2016) found that when Egyptian universities moved from an opaque to a transparent college admissions system, class-advantaged parents learned how to get their children into college and mobilized their greater resources to do so. When this information was hidden, their attempts to help their children misfired more, lowering class inequality in college admissions. Indeed, as transparent systems often result in the class-advantaged acquiring more information than the class-disadvantaged, systems in which information is hidden from everyone may be more equalizing.
Of course, hidden information is not the only reason why the class-advantaged’s social capital does not pay off. Although they had higher grade point averages and completed more internships than the class-disadvantaged, the class-disadvantaged may have compensating characteristics that employers value, such as longer work histories and more service activities. The rules of the game may also contribute to the non-payoff to the advantaged’s social capital: the expectation that job seekers stop looking for new jobs after accepting an offer stops the class-advantaged from using their connections repeatedly until they find a higher paying position. Social pressure to accept the positions their connections found for them, even if low-paying, may also contribute to these connections not paying off. Yet other explanations are unlikely to explain why the class-advantaged did not outearn the class-disadvantaged despite their greater social capital: it was not the case that class-advantaged respondents did not care about their wages; prioritized fun, a gap year, or working with their connections over high pay; applied for different types of jobs than the class-disadvantaged; had lower grade point averages, fewer internships, less signals of high status, or noticeably worse social skills than the class-disadvantaged; or faced discrimination for being advantaged. The class-advantaged were also not limited by the type of connections they had: they relied on strong and weak ties; ties to CEOs, experienced workers, entry-level employees, and interns; and parents who put in great effort to help them and strangers who put in less.
Future research should further interrogate how the class-advantaged sometimes fail to benefit from their greater social capital. What else prevents the class-advantaged from capitalizing on their greater social capital? What advantages do the class-advantaged’s personal connections try but fail to help them achieve? Is hidden information in one area more important than others? Besides hidden information, are there field properties that break down this exchange?
Policymakers should also consider the broader implications of these findings. Although pay transparency laws slightly raise employees’ salaries (Cullen 2024), and although some evidence suggests they lower gender wage inequality (Obloj and Zenger 2022), they may also create greater pay inequality by class background as they allow those with more social capital—the class-advantaged—to know how to use it to get ahead. Such trade-offs render policy decisions difficult and suggest that the recent move toward pay transparency laws may have unintended consequences.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is funded by the Spencer Foundation (grant 201500087).
