Prosocial Occupations, Work Autonomy, and the Origins of the Social Class Pay Gap

Despite decades of research on social mobility and wage disparities, it remains a puzzle why people from lower-class families earn less than upper-class even when similar in education occupational prestige. Taking sociocultural perspective class, we argue that key contributor to the class pay gap is origins tend work occupations with greater autonomy, whereas their counterparts are more prosocial. We further propose autonomous better prosocial occupations. Across two distinct nationally representative samples United States, find (vs. lower-class) parents likely occupations, but controlling for education, prestige, other potential confounds. This pattern sorting explains substantial portion gap. Our study extends literatures segregation, mobility, joins an important scholarly conversation has, until recently, taken place outside field management.