Starting a career can be more challenging for children of workers than for children of academics.
Application processes and the salary are sticking points.
The social background sometimes decides in which social circles people know their way around.
If you get to know other areas through a different educational path, this can be associated with uncertainties.
This is the case, for example, with many workers' children who want to get a job after their studies.
Starting a career: "Talking about money is often taboo"
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What is the value of your own work?
Many workers' children have difficulty assessing this and therefore have difficulties in salary negotiations.
© Elnur/Imago
Among other things, application processes and salary negotiations are difficult because first-time graduates often lack role models and people to talk to in their families and their own circle of acquaintances.
"By definition, first-generation students are those who are the first in their family to study or have studied," says Alexandra Redel, who works for ArbeiterKind.de.
The non-profit organization supports workers' children with questions about studying and starting a career.
A study by the Stifterverband and the management consultancy McKinsey, to which the Handelsblatt
2021 refers
, shows that this is still needed : According to this, children from the academic environment have a three times higher chance of a bachelor's degree than working-class children.
There are things, there is a veil around them, working-class children have no concrete ideas about them.
Alexandra Redel, ArbeiterKind.de, in conversation with IPPEN.MEDIA
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It depends on the profession in question and whether there is a salary range, but basically one can say that working-class children have a harder time negotiating their own money.
“What parents earn is often a mystery to first-time graduates.
Talking about money is often a taboo,” says Alexandra Redel, blaming social background as a factor for possible salary differences between the children of workers and the children of academics.
For some, it is difficult to assess the value of their own work, which is why, for example, job offers where you have to state your salary expectations are an exclusion criterion for an application, Redel explains and also speaks of her own experience of starting a career.
You are helpless when you have to provide salary information.
If this cannot be avoided, it may be that workers' children do not give enough information.
Alexandra Redel, ArbeiterKind.de, in conversation with IPPEN.MEDIA
For many, the handling of including a buffer in possible salary information, from which one can let oneself be negotiated, is not intuitive.
At the same time, there is also the fear of staying on a low salary if you have to provide information and get the job.
Working-class children want real experience
At ArbeiterKind.de, mentors who are already in professional life give first-time graduates an insight into working conditions and what starting salaries could be.
"You can tell that people are looking for others to hear from a real person what they can get in a certain area," says Alexandra Redel, describing part of the mentoring program.
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Workers' children at work: impostor syndrome is also present in some in high positions
The social background also plays a role for some employees in their professional life.
This is individual, but there are people who already have high positions and at the same time feel the pressure of their social background.
Basically, you can see the beginning of impostor syndrome, says Alexandra Redel.
Those affected by impostor syndrome have the unfounded fear that others will notice that they are not qualified enough for a certain position and actually do not belong there.
How strong the expression is, however, depends on how strong the feeling of "being different" is, describes Redel.
Possible solutions: Talk about money and remove hurdles in the application process
In order to be able to remove the obstacles for working-class children to start their careers, one step is to talk more about money.
Then anyone who is unsure of what standard salary ranges are would have a better idea of what they could ask for their job.
A step away from “rigid CVs”, as Redel describes it, would also be ideal for working-class children.
Because the structure of the CVs of workers' children and academics' children inevitably differ.
"It is still very often the case that at least three internships and a semester abroad have to be completed, otherwise you won't make it through the first round of the application process," says Redel, although that's not standard for many working-class children.
Internships and semesters abroad would not necessarily say anything about who is qualified for a specific position.
Rubric list image: © Elnur/Imago