Are lower social class origins stigmatized at work? A qualitative study of social class concealment and disclosure among White men employees who experienced upward mobility

Author links an articvle article by Anna M. Kallschmidt and Asia A. Eaton (Florida International University, USA) published in Journal of Vocational Behavior Volume 113 (August 2019)

Highlights

• White men who moved up in social class strategically manage class identity at work.
• Most of our sample purposefully concealed and disclosed their previous lower class.
• Men concealed when suspecting judgment, no understanding, pity, and for privacy.
• Men disclosed to relate to or help others, or when forced to or outed by class cues.

Abstract

Despite recognizing that socioeconomic standing can influence workplace behavior, minimal research in psychology has explored social class as a stigmatized and potentially manageable identity in the workplace. Compared to women and people of color, White men who moved up from low-income backgrounds may be especially likely to experience their previous class status as a concealable stigma at work.

In this study, we used qualitative methods to investigate whether having a lower social class background might be experienced as a stigmatized identity for some employees, using a sample of 20 White men who self-identified as having moved up in social class. Individual interviews were used to assess the nature of participants' social class concealment and disclosure at work.

Thematic analysis revealed five reasons why these White men concealed their former, lower-income status at work: Judgment, Nobody understands, It's personal, Pity, and Don't want to feel embarrassed or vulnerable.

Our analysis also revealed five reasons why participants disclosed their previous class identity at work: being Forced to, To relate, To motivate/help somebody, Noticing class cues, and Becoming close.

Results indicate that having a lower social class background can be experienced as stigmatizing at work. Moreover, while disclosure of one's lower-income background is more common than concealment for men in this group, that disclosure is often unintentional or unwanted.

Our results also indicate that, like other potentially concealable identities, social class disclosure is an ongoing process that happens unevenly across time and across people. Future research should expand on this work by examining the experiences of upwardly mobile employees from other identity intersections.

Hazel’s comment:
The sample is much too small for the results to be significant but they can be taken as indicative of a problem for White men working in the USA.
Is this a problem in the UK? My experience as an employment adviser seems to be saying “yes and it is a serious issue as the UK, England in particular, is very class conscious”.

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