Talent Development & Excellence
Vol. 2, No. 1, 2010, 105-117
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
105
Achievement or Origin: Social Background and Ascent
to Top Management
Michael Hartmann*
Abstract: In this paper, the relationship between social origin and ascent to the upper
echelons of the German business community is investigated based on multivariate
analyses of educational and career paths. Subjects were some 6,500 PhD holders
awarded a doctorate in engineering, law or economics in the years 1955, 1965, 1975
and 1985. It emerges that PhD holders from the upper classes are much more likely to
be admitted to the business elite than their equally qualified peers from the working
class and broad middle classes. Furthermore, results show that the equalization of
educational opportunities has not equalized chances of recruitment to elite positions.
Thus, career prospects are not primarily determined by individual ability and effort,
and selection to the German business elite is by no means meritocratic in nature.
Keywords:
social mobility, inequality, meritocracy, business elite
Introduction
Academic interest in questions of social mobility and elite formation has intensified
noticeably over recent years, particularly in Germany. The financial crisis has brought this
discussion to a head and focussed attention on the relationship between individual
performance, social mobility and the formation of elites. This relationship is also central to
the sociological analysis of modern societies. Examining the recruitment and structure of
social elites provides an insight into the relevance of individual achievement for the
occupational career, and thus sheds light on the permeability or impermeability of class
structures. As Schluchter (1963) remarked nearly five decades ago, “In essence, the nature
of the elites reflects on the nature of society”. Only an analysis of the social elites can, he
concludes, show “whether industrial society can justifiably be considered a meritocracy
in the real sense of the world at all” (p. 249, translation by the author).
Access to the elites is thus the litmus test for both classic modernization theories (Blau &
Duncan, 1967; Treiman, 1970; Young, 1958) and the main stream of elite research in
Germany and the USA (Dahrendorf, 1962, 1967; Herzog, 1982; Higley, Hoffmann-Lange,
Kadushin, & Moore, 1991; Hoffmann-Lange, 1992; Keller, 1963; Lasswell & Lerner, 1965;
Lerner, Nagai, & Rothman, 1996). Both of these approaches share the core assumption that
occupational position and status are now acquired by virtue of one’s personal
achievements and no longer ascribed on the basis of one’s social background. In her
influential work Beyond the Ruling Class, Keller (1963) refers to the “rise of individual
achievement as the chief principle of recruitment to strategic elite positions” (p. 262). With
reference to Blau and Duncan (1967), Bond and Saunders (1999) argue that the real reason
for disparate chances of success is that middle-class children outdo their lower-class
peers in terms of individual effort and ability. Career success and, ultimately, the position
in the class structure are chiefly determined by these individual factors, which “cannot be
explained away as class background effects” (p. 245).
In the German context, this discussion takes on a specific character. In the early 1960s,
Dahrendorf (1962) argues that the continuing recruitment of the German elites from the
upper classes could be explained by the “educational privilege of certain social strata
(particularly the upper class and the upper middle class)”. Accordingly, he calls for the
social stratification of educational opportunities in Germany to be abolished, professing
*
Institute of Sociology, FB2, Technical University Darmstadt, Residenzschloss, 64283
Darmstadt, Germany. Email: [email protected]
ISSN 1869-0459 (print)/ ISSN 1869-2885 (online)
 2010 International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence
http://www.iratde.org
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M. Hartmann
this to be the key prerequisite for a social “opening” of the German elites (pp. 22–23,
translation by the author). The expansion of the German education system since the 1960s
should thus have had – and continue to have – considerable implications for elite
recruitment.
The following analysis aims to shed light on the relationship between social origin,
academic success and career progression in Germany. Should the assumption that social
selection is essentially meritocratic in nature prove to be correct, PhD holders from the
socially privileged classes should not be any more likely to achieve a top management
position than their equally qualified peers from less privileged backgrounds. Because the
doctorate is the highest academic degree in Germany, and academic qualifications are
both the key meritocratic predictor variable and the soundest indicator of individual
ability and effort (Bond & Saunders, 1999), PhD holders from working or middle-class
families need to have demonstrated at least the same amount of ability and effort as their
counterparts from the upper classes to achieve this qualification. In fact, there is much to
suggest that they need to be even more talented and hard-working to overcome the
numerous social barriers confronting them on their educational path. At any rate, should
the theory of meritocratic access to occupational and elite positions hold, they should
have the same chances as their peers from the upper classes in the competition for these
jobs. However, a finding to the contrary – i.e., that social origin is still a key factor in
determining access to the economic elite, even for PhD holders – would cast doubt on the
central thesis of modernization theory and the main stream of elite research.
Data and Methods
To address these questions, the social background, educational paths and occupational
careers of all those awarded a doctorate in engineering, law or economics in the years
1955, 1965, 1975 and 1985 were compared in a research project funded by the German
Research Foundation (DFG)1. Nine out of ten top managers studied one of these three
subjects, and almost half of them have a doctorate (Hartmann, 2000). The social origin and
educational careers of the PhD holders were ascertained from the CVs they attached to
their dissertations. Because CVs are, by nature, to the point and concise, they offer a much
higher degree of comparability than other biographic sources, and are thus particularly
well suited to this research approach. Of the 6,544 dissertations inspected, 86.5%
included a CV. Of these, 74.1% not only detailed the PhD candidate’s educational career,
but also specified the father’s occupation. Moreover, in over 90% of cases, these social
origin data were temporally standardized to the year of the PhD candidate’s birth.
Data collection forms were used to compile all the information typically included in a CV
attached to a dissertation: age, gender, university at which the doctorate was awarded,
subject(s) of study, beginning and length of university studies, number and nationality of
universities attended, employment before, during and after university studies, and social
origin. The father’s profession was classified to one of the following 11 categories: (a)
manual workers, (b) farmers, (c) lower-grade salaried workers/civil servants, (d)
intermediate-grade salaried workers/civil servants, (e) small-scale self-employed, (f)
merchants, (g) members of the liberal professions, (h) high-ranking officers/landed
proprietors, (i) senior civil servants, (j) upper level management and (k) large industrial
and commercial employers2.
These occupational groups were then collapsed into two or three broad social classes.
First, a distinction was drawn between the working class/middle classes, spanning
occupational groups (a) to (e), on the one hand, and the gehobenes Buergertum or upper
classes, comprising occupational groups (f) to (k), on the other. The upper classes were
then subdivided into two groups, the upper middle class (gehobenes Buergertum in the
strict sense) and the upper class (Grossbuergertum)3. This grouping, which deviates from
the standard approach taken in social structure research with respect to both the internal
differentiation of upper classes and the merging of the working and middle classes, was
chosen because the main point of interest when examining the relationship between
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
107
social origin and access to elite positions is the extent to which the elites recruit their
members from a background similar or identical to their own. The more the elites
continue to be recruited from the “better circles” of society, and especially the upper
class in the strict sense, the more exclusive they are, and the tighter their grip on the reins
of power.
The differentiation between the upper classes on the one hand and the broad middle
classes and working class on the other is based on the standard definition in social
structure and elite research of Service Class I as the highest social category, as well as on
the concepts and terminology commonly used by social historians (Wehler, 1995, 2001).
The aim was to ensure the categories are not only precise in social scientific terms, but
that – apart from existing on paper – they also have a historic basis and reflect the socially
perceptible reality of the lifeworld. Owners and upper-level managers of companies with
at least ten employees, high-ranking officers and proprietors of more than 50 hectares of
land, senior civil servants and liberal professionals are categorized as belonging to the
upper middle class in the present study. When the four cohorts of PhD holders under
investigation were children, i.e., between World War I and the early years of the Federal
Republic, this group made up 3–3.8% of the male workforce (Hartmann, 2002).
The differentiation of the upper classes into the upper middle class and the upper class in
the strict sense is also based on standard practice in social history, where a distinction is
drawn between upper classes in general and the “upper class” that dominates society in
particular. In the present study, large scale entrepreneurs, the directors and upper-level
managers of large corporations, big landed proprietors, top-level civil servants, generals
and prominent liberal professionals are classified as belonging to the upper class. It
constitutes a steady 0.5% of the population throughout the period of investigation4.
In a combined analysis of the subjects’ origins and current whereabouts (an unusual
approach for elite research), the information drawn from the CVs was then supplemented
by information on the subjects’ occupational career trajectories. These data were
obtained by comparing key personal data provided in the CVs – name, date of birth,
academic title and, if necessary, subject studied – with the entries in specialized trade
directories. For careers in top management, the 1955–1999 volumes of the classic
Hoppenstedt reference work Leitende Maenner der Wirtschaft (since 1979: Leitende
Maenner und Frauen der Wirtschaft) (Hoppenstedt, 1955-1978; 1979-1999) were used for
this purpose. The annual volumes list 50,000–60,000 top executives in Germany’s big
companies – from managing directors of medium-sized businesses with at least 150
employees and/or a turnover of at least 10 million euros to the CEOs of industrial
heavyweights. To differentiate between the topmost circle of the business elite and those
who can simply be described as members of Germany’s business elite in the broader
sense, a further distinction was then drawn between large enterprises in general and the
top companies that dominate the German economy in particular. This distinction was
made according to the list of the 100 largest German enterprises published by the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Die 100 groessten Unternehmen, 1956–2000) for the past
five decades5.
When investigating the impact of social background on the chances of securing a position
in top management, it does not suffice to simply present descriptive analyses of the
proportion of PhD holders from each class or stratum who succeed in advancing to the
peak of the business world. Such outcomes may be dependent on a variety of social
processes. For example, it is quite conceivable that the subject of study or achievementrelated factors – such as length of studies, the age at which the doctorate was conferred,
or periods of study abroad – differ according to the social background, and that these
factors alone explain the different chances of success. Thus, multivariate analysis
methods, which make it possible to control for such variables, are needed to determine
the actual influence of the social origin. The methodological approach of event history
analysis makes it possible to investigate the probability that an event – here, securing a
top executive position – will occur, and how long this will take. Moreover, the effects of
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M. Hartmann
various relevant predictors or covariates on the probability of changing from one state to
the next can be explored. In the following, the results of a particular form of event history
analyses, namely Cox models, will be presented. These semi-parametric models have the
advantage over other models used in event history analysis that no restrictive parametric
assumptions about the shape of the baseline rate are necessary (Rohwer, 2000). Within
Cox models the effect sizes β of the theoretically significant predictor variables
(estimated via a partial-likelihood method) are very easy to interpret. Once converted to
exponential values, they represent a multiplicative effect, often termed the α-effect. For
example, an α-effect of 0.6 indicates that the probability or risk of the event in question
occurring decreases to 60% when there is a specific change in a covariate, while an αeffect of 1.3 can be interpreted as an increase of 30% in the probability that the event will
occur. In the following, the results of the present study will be reported in terms of these
simple α-coefficients.
The Significance of Class Origins for Career Destinations
Of the 6,544 subjects who gained PhDs in engineering, law or economics in the four
doctoral cohorts under examination, 663 reached the upper echelons of a large
enterprise in the course of their occupational career. In other words, just over one in ten
was admitted to the German business elite in the broader sense. Since no complete data
were available for 149 of these subjects, however, the following analyses are restricted to
the 514 persons, i.e., the 12.3% of the 4,194 PhD holders, whose CVs included the data
required for the multivariate analyses, specifically information on their father’s
occupation.
One finding is immediately clear. Although the doctoral qualification itself displays a high
level of social selection – 60% of the PhD holders come from the upper classes – strict
social selection processes are also in operation over the course of the occupational
career. Overall, one in eight of the PhD holders has attained a position in top management.
This holds for only 9.3% (around one in eleven) of the PhD holders from the working and
middle classes. For those originating from the upper middle class, the success rate is
13.2%, or more than one in eight. With a recruitment rate of 19%, however, PhD holders
from the upper class have an almost one in five chance of being accepted to the upper
echelons of the German business world. Thus, the social origin seems to represent a
second, very effective social barrier to career success in the business world, regardless of
the doctoral qualification. When the social background data are inspected in more detail,
using the original 11-category classification of the father’s occupation rather than the
three-tier classification discussed thus far, the social disparities become even more
apparent. Indeed, it emerges that only 5.9% of PhD holders from working-class
backgrounds are recruited to top positions in large concerns. For the children of
merchants, high-ranking officers and landowners, or large industrial and commercial
employers, in contrast, the chance of success is almost three times higher, at 14.3 to
17.5%6.
These first impressions are confirmed by the multivariate analyses, which allow the effects
of various covariates to be inspected more closely (see Table 1). The effect of social origin
remains just as strong when controlling for the doctoral cohort and the subject studied
(Model 1). Indeed, social background proves to have a greater impact than any other
factor except gender7. PhD holders from the upper middle class are 50% more likely than
their peers from the working class and the broad middle classes to gain entry into the
business elite; those from an upper-class background are more than twice as likely to do
so8. When the more detailed, 11-category social breakdown is used, two interesting
findings emerge. Children from working-class families are at particular risk of being
excluded from top-level business careers – even PhD holders from the broad middle
classes are at least 50% more likely to succeed. The children of high-ranking officers,
landowners and large industrial and commercial employers are particularly successful, in
contrast.
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
109
Table 1. Determinants of Securing a Senior Position in Business (Overview of the Different Models; αEffects)9
Predictor variables
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Cohort
1955
1965
1975
1985
Reference group
1.01
0.73
1.11
Reference group
1.09
0.88
1.34
Reference group
1.08
0.59
0.90
Subject studied
Engineering
Law
Economics
Reference group
1.03
1.87
Reference group
0.82
1.47
Reference group
1.02
1.85
Gender
Male
Female
Reference group
0.10
Reference group
0.10
Reference group
0.10
Interaction effect social origin and
cohorta
Upper middle class and 1965
Upper middle class and 1975
Upper middle class and 1985
Upper class and 1965
Upper class and 1975
Upper class and 1985
0.92
1.32
1.49
0.88
1.54
0.85
Length of university studies
Standard course duration (SCD)
≤ 1 year longer than SCD
> 1 year longer than SCD
Reference group
0.73
0.74
Period of study abroad
No
Yes
Reference group
1.18
Age at conferral of doctorate (in years)
0.95
Employed prior to gaining doctorate
No
Yes
Social origin
Working class/middle classes
Upper middle class
Upper class
Reference group
1.27
Reference group
1.50
2.12
Reference group
1.46
2.00
Reference group
1.42
2.07
Note. N=4,180; number of events: 514.
a
Reference group is the 1955 cohort of the upper middle class and upper class respectively.
In a second step, various aspects of the university career were entered into the model
(Model 2). Because students from the upper and upper middle classes tend to begin their
university studies earlier and are more likely to complete part of their studies abroad, it
seems important to control for these variables. The results confirm widespread
assumptions about the positive effects of certain aspects of the university career. For
example, those who complete their university studies earlier do indeed gain a better
foothold on the career ladder, while those who take longer than four years to complete
their studies are one quarter less likely to acquire a senior management position.
Likewise, a period of study abroad boosts career chances by 18%. The age at which the
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M. Hartmann
doctorate was conferred, i.e., the age at which university studies were commenced plus
the years of study, also impacts on career development. Children from upper- and uppermiddle-class families typically begin studying six months earlier than their peers, and are
thus younger when they receive their doctorate. They are also more likely to study abroad.
Both of these factors are clearly beneficial to their future career. Furthermore, only one in
four of the upper-class students took longer than five years to complete their studies,
compared with almost one in three of those from working- or middle-class backgrounds.
All this seems to indicate that the higher success rate of the upper classes may be
attributable – to a not inconsiderable extent – to the more career-minded approach they
take to their university studies.
Despite its apparent plausibility, however, this assumption does not hold. Even when
controlling for these features of the university career, children from the “better circles” of
society hold on to their head start on the career ladder. Even then, PhD holders from the
upper middle classes have a 46% higher chance of securing a top management position,
and those from the upper class are twice as likely to do so. The deviations from the first
model are minimal. Hence, the impact of social origin on occupational careers cannot be
explained by differential study patterns; rather, the social origin exerts a very direct
effect.
The expansion of the education system, and the associated opening up of higher
education and (somewhat later) doctoral studies to a broader section of society, has also
failed to diminish the significance of social origin. Granted, the proportion of upper-class
children among the PhD holders dropped by half between 1955 and 1985, from 15.4 to
just 7.8%, while the share of working- and middle-class PhD holders rose from 38.5 to
45.9%, but this process had no effect at all on the career prospects of the respective
groups. This becomes quite evident when the respective statistical interaction effects are
included in the calculation (Model 3). Not only does the overall effect of social
background remain nigh on unchanged, with children from the upper middle and upper
classes enjoying a head start of between 42% and over 100%, but the interaction effects
for the 1975 and 1985 cohorts are also clearly positive. More specifically, compared with
the 1955 cohort, members of the upper middle class who gained their doctorate in 1975
or 1985 have been able to extend their head start over their peers from the working and
middle classes by a further 32 to 49%. For the upper class, the same applies to the 1975
cohort, who builds on their lead by more than 50%. Although this development does not
continue on into the youngest cohort10, there is nothing to suggest that there has been a
social “opening” of the business elite as a result of educational expansion. On the
contrary, in fact, it is becoming even more exclusive.
Only the 1965 cohort is characterized by a slight improvement in the career prospects of
working- and middle-class PhD holders. This cannot be attributed to educational reforms,
which did not come into effect until later, but to changes in the political and economic
environment. The new political era in Bonn, with the SPD forming part of the governing
coalition for the first time in its history (first as the junior partner of the conservative
CDU/CSU, and then as the senior partner in the social-liberal coalition formed in 1969),
and the very favourable economic situation of the late 1960s/early 1970s, with two-digit
growth rates, meant the prospects for the working- and middle-class members of this
cohort were unusually good. Indeed, their chances on the elite job market always increase
when – as was the case at the time – there are disproportionately large numbers of
managerial positions to be filled.
Overall, the multivariate models confirm the key finding that social background exerts a
very strong, direct effect on career prospects in large German companies. Given the same
level of academic qualification, the social background effects that clearly favour
applicants from the upper and upper middle classes persist, even when controlling for
various other factors (cohort, subject of study, aspects of the university career). What is
more, these social background effects have actually gained in importance since the 1970s.
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
111
Apart from its general impact on access to the business elite, moreover, the social origin
influences the speed and structure of the occupational career. PhD holders from the upper
middle class, and from the upper class in particular, are not only more successful when it
comes to embarking on a high-level business career, they also scale the corporate ladder
faster. In the first 10 years of their career, PhD holders from upper-class families reach top
managerial positions up to two or even three times quicker than their peers. They thus
gain a head start over children from both the upper middle class and the working/middle
classes that they maintain and even extend over the next two decades (see Figure 1). The
gap between the three social background groups grows from year to year. Hence,
widespread assumptions that “no further discrimination” occurs once candidates from
working class backgrounds have managed to overcome the barriers facing them and
break into the management of large enterprises do not correspond with reality.
Where career structures are concerned, PhD holders from the upper middle class, and
especially the upper class, are considerably more likely than their peers from the
working/middle classes to continue scaling the corporate career ladder after securing
their first top position in a large enterprise. Whereas only about one in six of those from
working- and middle-class backgrounds achieve such an ascent (e.g., from managing
director of a large enterprise to board member of a top company, or from board member
to chairman of the board), almost one in four PhD holders from the upper middle class
and almost one in three from the upper class manage this important step. Thus, the son of
an industrial tycoon or top government official is almost twice as likely to continue
climbing the corporate career ladder after his first appointment to top management than
the son of a manual worker, bank clerk, headmaster or graduate engineer. All those
admitted to the upper echelons of the German business world tend to have been granted
permanent membership of the business elite in the broader sense, irrespective of their
origins. However, only a minority continue their career at an even higher level. This
minority is again recruited in disproportionate numbers from the “better circles” of
society. The closer they get to the real corridors of power, the stricter the social selection
mechanisms become.
This is even more evident when focussing on the PhD holders who have advanced to the
boardrooms of the top German companies, i.e., the core of the German business elite. In
total, 177 of the PhD holders assumed a senior management position in a top company in
the course of their careers. Complete data sets were available for 143 of these subjects. A
casual glance reveals that social background is even more decisive for recruitment to
senior positions in the concerns dominating the German economy than it was for
recruitment to large enterprises in general.
0.3
Working class/
middle classes
0.2
Upper middle
class
Upper class
0.1
0
0
10
20
Years
Figure 1. Business careers over time by social origin.
30
112
M. Hartmann
Of course, the PhD holders have far slimmer chances of securing a leading position in a
top company, simply because fewer such positions are available. Nevertheless, social
selection mechanisms are again very apparent. Whereas only 2.1% of PhD holders from
the working or middle classes secure a senior position in a top company, almost twice as
many (3.9%) of those from the upper middle class and more than three times as many
(6.2%) of those from upper class homes do so. Here again, children from working-class
families have the bleakest prospects. Only one in 200 of them makes it to the topmost
circles of the business community. Compare this with the children of upper-level
managers, merchants and landowners, who are ten times more successful.
Again, multivariate analyses confirm these first impressions (see Table 2, Model 4). Not
only does social origin have by far the strongest impact on management careers in top
companies, it has an even greater effect than was the case for large enterprises in
Table 2. Determinants of Securing a Senior Position in a Top Company (Overview of the Different
Models; α-Effects)11
Predictor variables
Model 4
Model 5
Model 6
Cohort
1955
1965
1975
Reference group
0.85
0.73
Reference group
0.87
0.87
Reference group
0.67
0.46
Subject studied
Engineering
Law
Economics
Reference group
1.14
1.51
Reference group
0.82
1.00
Reference group
1.12
1.50
Gender
Male
Female
Reference group
0.13
Reference group
0.12
Reference group
0.13
Interaction effect social origin and
cohorta
Upper middle class and 1965
Upper middle class and 1975
Upper class and 1965
Upper class and 1975
1.35
1.73
1.40
2.36
Length of university studies
Standard course duration (SCD)
≤ 1 year longer than SCD
> 1 year longer than SCD
Reference group
0.81
0.74
Period of study abroad
No
Yes
Reference group
1.68
Age at conferral of doctorate (in years)
0.91
Employed prior to gaining doctorate
No
Yes
Social origin
Working class/middle classes
Upper middle class
Upper class
Reference group
1.70
Reference group
1.82
2.76
Reference group
1.70
2.46
Reference group
1.48
2.13
Note. N=3,563; number of events: 139.
a
Reference group is the 1955 cohort of the upper middle class and upper class respectively.
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
113
general. Compared with PhD holders from the working and middle classes, those from the
upper middle class have an 82% higher chance of being appointed to a senior position in
a top company, while those from the upper class have a 176% higher chance. When these
results are examined in more detail using the 11-category classification scheme, it
emerges that PhD holders from working-class and especially small-scale self-employed
backgrounds have particularly poor career prospects. In contrast, the offspring of
landowners and large industrial and commercial employers, followed by the children of
merchants and liberal professionals are most likely to be recruited to senior management
positions in top German companies.
When variables describing the university career are included in this analysis (Model 5),
the previous results are substantiated. Even when controlling for factors such as the length
of university studies and periods of study abroad, the top companies are distinguished
from large enterprises in general by the far greater importance they attach to social
origins. Although the age at which the doctorate was awarded, previous employment, and
periods of study abroad also have more of an impact in the top companies – increasing
the probability of securing a top-level position by up to 70% – the effect of social origin
does not decrease noticeably. Even then, relative to their counterparts from the working
class and the broad middle classes, PhD holders from the upper middle class are 70%
more likely, and those with upper class backgrounds two-and-a-half times more likely, to
advance to the boardrooms of Germany’s top companies.
With regard to development over time (Model 6), two points are worthy of note. There is a
linear increase in the significance of social origin for recruitment to top companies. In the
1965 cohort, PhD holders from the working and middle classes are still no more likely to
be recruited to a top company. In contrast, those from upper middle class and upper class
backgrounds already have 30 to 40% better prospects than the 1955 cohort. In other
words, PhD holders from “better circles” enjoy a considerably larger head start in the top
German companies than in large enterprises in general. The 1965 cohort is as far ahead
as the 1975 cohort was in Model 3, and the 1975 cohort extends this lead yet further, with
73 to 136% increases in the probability of success12.
All this makes one thing more than clear: PhD holders who reach senior management
positions in top companies in the course of their careers, and thus clearly belong to the
business elite in the strict sense, are exposed to particularly strict social selection. The
higher the position in the economy, the greater the impact of social origin. Access to the
business elite in the strict sense is still largely reserved for those from the upper middle
class and (to an even greater extent) the upper class.
Table 3. Determinants of Assuming a Function in a Professional Association13
Predictor variables
Additional career in professional association
α-Effects
Cohort
1955
1965
1975
Reference group
0.50
0.14
Subject studied
Engineering
Law
Economics
Reference group
0.88
2.23
Social origin
Working class/middle classes
Upper middle class
Upper class
Reference group
1.36
2.95
Number of cases:
Number of events:
3333
89
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M. Hartmann
This finding is further substantiated by the social composition of the select group of PhD
holders who attain a top position in a trade association as well as a senior post in a large
enterprise in the course of their career. Those from upper class families are exceptionally
predominant in this group (see Table 3). Not only do they outnumber their peers from the
working/middle classes almost threefold, they also outstrip those from the upper middle
class by more than 150%. Hence, social selection is even more pronounced here than in
the top companies. Where positions in trade associations are concerned, the social divide
does not run as much between the “normal population” and the upper classes, as
between the upper class in the strict sense and the rest of the population.
Here again, the tighter the PhD holders’ grip on the reins of power, the more strongly
social selection processes act in favour of those from an upper class background. In most
cases, the combination of a senior management position and a leading post in a major
trade association affords greater power than a top job alone. Social selection in support of
candidates from the upper class becomes increasingly evident, the more power is
concentrated in the position in question.
Conclusion
Bond and Saunders (1999) judge social mobility in modern society to be, in a nutshell,
“unequal but fair”. The results of the present study point in a different direction entirely.
The finding that PhD holders from the upper class are two to three times more likely to
secure a top management position than their equally qualified peers from the working
and middle classes is clear evidence that the reality is not “unequal but fair”, but
“unequal and unfair”. However talented children from working-class backgrounds are,
and however hard they work to overcome the social barriers in their path and earn the
highest academic degree of a doctorate, their prospects of a top-level career in business
remain 70–90% below those of their peers born into the families of large industrial and
commercial employers, upper-level managers or land-owners.
There is no doubt that there is a direct relationship between class affiliation and career
prospects, i.e., between class origins and class destinations. For this reason, the
equalization of educational opportunities since the 1970s has not equalized the chances of
being recruited to elite positions, as predicted by authors such as Dahrendorf (e.g., 1962,
1967). On the contrary, the existing inequalities have been exacerbated. This is confirmed
by a look at the CEOs of the 100 biggest German concerns. Whereas in 1970, 17% of these
CEOs came from the working and middle classes, 35 years later, the figure had dropped
to 15% (Hartmann, 2000; Hartmann, 2007). Where top-level positions are concerned, at
least, social selection in Germany is by no means meritocratic, and career prospects are
certainly not determined chiefly by individual ability and effort14. Contrary to Keller’s
(1963) postulate, individual achievement is not the chief principle of recruitment to the
elites.
Notes
1
In addition to the business elite, top-level positions in the judiciary, politics and
academia were also investigated (Hartmann, 2002).
2
For example, foremen and production supervisors were allocated to category (a); all
salaried workers and civil servants for whom no further details were provided to
category (c); salaried workers with commercial or technical training and clerical- or
executive-grade civil servants to category (d); retailers, artisans, ship’s masters, etc., to
category (e); salaried workers in upper-level management positions and salaried
workers with an academic background (but no detailed job description) to category (j);
and industrial and commercial employers with a staff of at least ten to category (k).
Social Background and Ascent to Top Management
115
3
It is important to note that all of these categories and classifications refer to the
generation to which the subjects’ fathers belonged, i.e., to those who were economically
active between the end of the Wilhelmine Empire and the early years of the Federal
Republic in the 1950s. The social structure – in terms of the distinction between the
upper classes and the working/middle classes – remained relatively stable throughout
this period, but underwent rapid transformation from the 1960s onwards, largely due to
the expansion of the education system.
4
In the following, all references to the “upper class” (singular) signify this top 0.5% of
society.
5
In the following, the enterprises on this list are termed “top companies”. The original list
actually included almost 160 industrial companies. The subsequent inclusion of trade,
transportation and service companies, banks and insurance companies boosted this
figure to some 300 in the 1980s, and to 416 by the 1990s. In the present investigation, the
financial concerns that were first featured in the 1980s are also counted as “top
companies” in the years before their inclusion in the list.
6
For PhD holders from the families of large industrial and commercial employers, the
possibility that top-level positions are handed straight down the family line cannot be
ruled out. Because the present study spanned such a long period, and because the
intricate details of company ownership structures are not always released to the public,
it was not possible to clarify this point fully. Nevertheless, two findings suggest that this
factor does not play a notable role. First, the percentage of PhD holders from such
families among the executive elite plunged from 8.6% in the 1955 cohort to just 4.1% in
the 1975 and 1985 cohorts; second, the impact of social origin is particularly
pronounced in large public companies, which are not owned by just a single family.
7
Women are 90% less likely than men to secure a top executive position in an industrial
concern. Of the 182 women PhD holders whose CVs included the necessary information
for the present study, only three have been admitted to the business elite – and all three
of them took over their father’s company.
8
The children of the nobility appear to be even more successful than those of the upper
class, outperforming even their rivals from this background by a further 50%. Because
this figure is based on data from just 51 subjects, however, it should be interpreted with
caution, and only regarded as indicative of a trend. Due the few subjects in this category,
no further analyses were performed for the nobility.
9
It may at first seem strange that the significance levels of the effect sizes are not reported
for these and the other multivariate models. However, the population under analysis
here is not a sample; rather, it is a complete analysis of the respective doctoral cohorts.
As such, it would not make sense to report the results of significance tests (for the
various sides to this argument, see Berk, Western and Weiss (1995) and the Discussion
on Berk, Western, and Weiss (1995). However, it is worth mentioning that the
interpretations of all important effects in this model remain unchanged when
significance tests are applied. As such, the results reported in the following can be
generalized beyond the cohorts under inspection.
10
The marked and atypical drop in the success rate of the 1985 cohort can probably be
explained by the fact that the upper-class members of this cohort are no longer as keen
to obtain a PhD. In view of their relatively good career prospects, many of them
(especially the economists) evidently chose to take the direct route from their first
degree to a management position. This has two important implications. First, the upper
class is clearly under-represented (with a one-seventh lower figure) among the
economists, the most successful group of PhD holders and, more importantly, it is clearly
over-represented among the lawyers, the group with the poorest career prospects as a
result of lawyers increasingly being crowded out of top-level positions in business
(Hartmann, 1990, 1995). More than half (54%) of those from an upper-class background
116
M. Hartmann
who were awarded a PhD in 1985 had studied law, compared with just 36.7% of those
from other backgrounds. Second, with a total of just 50 subjects from this background,
every individual counts, meaning that statistical bias cannot be ruled out here.
11
The 1985 cohort is not included in this analysis because only four members of this
cohort have as yet advanced to the boardrooms of a top company, and further analyses
would be pointless with such low numbers.
12
The fact that there is no great difference in the overall probability of success is due to
the exclusion of the 1985 cohort from Model 6. This cohort displayed the strongest social
background effect for careers in large enterprises in general. If it had also been
excluded from Model 3, the differences in the overall percentages for Models 3 and 6
would also be much more pronounced.
13
The 1985 cohort is excluded on account of low case and event numbers. The results
reported in the following are thus restricted to men in the 1955, 1965 and 1975 doctoral
cohorts.
14
For the mechanisms via which class origins determine recruitment to top positions in
the business elite see Hartmann (1996, 2000, 2002).
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The Author
Michael Hartmann is Professor of Sociology at the Technical University of
Darmstadt. He studied sociology, politics, philosophy, psychology, history and
German philology and earned his Ph.D. in Hannover. His research topics are
elites, management and higher
higher education in international comparison. His
books include Hartmann, M. (2007), The sociology of elites
lites. London: Routledge
and Hartmann, M. (2007), Eliten und Macht in Europa [Elites
Elites and power in
Europe].. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus.
Campus
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M. Hartmann