[lg policy] Class Pay Gap in Britain Shows Snobbery Persists

[Harold Schiffman]

Hear This: Class Pay Gap in Britain Shows Snobbery Persists

By STEVEN ERLANGERFEB. 19, 2017


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Afternoon drinks in Leadenhall Market in London’s Financial District. A pay
gap in Britain based on social class is especially wide in the financial
and medical professions, a government study found. Credit Adam Ferguson for
The New York Times

LONDON — For a relatively small country, Britain is blessed with a
multitude of regional and even neighborhood accents.

While all these varied pronunciations add flavor to the language, they also
have their pitfalls: Whenever British people speak, their fellow citizens
immediately hear the unmistakable twang of class.

Snobbery still lives in Britain, a class-conscious democracy with carefully
calibrated levels of social standing.

The latest evidence of the persistence — and perniciousness — of the class
system comes from an official government report from the Social Mobility
Commission, which found what it called a “class pay gap.”

Professionals with working-class backgrounds make, on average, 6,800
pounds, or about $8,400, less a year than their colleagues from more
privileged families.

The study attributed some of that difference to education and other
factors, but it also found that those from working-class families who have
exactly the same occupational role, education and experience as their
colleagues from more advantaged backgrounds are still paid, on average,
2,242 pounds, or about $2,800, less a year. The study found the gap was
especially wide in the financial and medical professions.

The class pay gap is worse for women and people from minority-ethnic
backgrounds, according to the research, which was carried out for the
commission by the London School of Economics and University College London.
The study looked at data from nearly 65,000 people drawn from the U.K.
Labor Force Survey.
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One reason for the pay disparity, the study suggested, is that children of
professional families are more likely to work for larger companies and in
London, where salaries are higher. Another is what it called “cultural
matching,” whereby those making the hiring decisions extend job offers to
those with whom they feel comfortable based on social and cultural traits.

That, of course, is another form of what the study calls “outright
discrimination or snobbery.”

Tim Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, said the report
“exposes the gaping class divide at the heart of our society that we all
already knew existed.”

Alan Milburn, the former Labour minister who heads the Social Mobility
Commission, said that he would send details of the findings to employers
and that he expected them to “take action to end the shocking class
earnings penalty.”

Mr. Milburn concluded that “this unprecedented research provides powerful
new evidence that Britain remains a deeply elitist society.”

And the quickest and often clearest signpost for snobs is the sound of
people’s voices.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/world/europe/britain-class-pay-gap-snobbery.html?_r=0

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