Crack the Glass Floor

I was reading an article which makes the claim that stupid wealthy kids had more of an opportunity to get into well paid jobs than their smarter lower class equivalents.  This was the findings of a study by The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission (SMCP), which has become termed the glass floor effect. It's interesting to call it a glass floor, a bit like the glass ceiling which prevents women from achieving higher success than they should. Glass must mean it is invisible but it's there, this glass however is probably toughened and even bullet proof. Such a glass floor or glass ceiling means social stereotypes remain valid stereotypes.  The parents of such stupid children have an advantage because of their social status and their money.  The findings are:

• They invest time and resources in their children's education.

• Better careers advice and guidance.

• Ability to move to the right catchment area to enable choice of school.

• Giving their children self confidence, making them resilient and guidance on how to lead.  

• The use of informal social networks to help their children into work.

• Help with unpaid internships.

In reading a press release it states there were a lot of soft skill sets which wealthier parents were able to instil their children.  When looking at these skill sets there are all basically psychological.  Self confidence, is perhaps one of the most valuable items an individual can have when needing to present themselves especially in an interview situation.  Without this what comes across is a train wreck of nerves. However, lower class and working class families do not always have this skill because they are so overly involved in making ends meet. The most predominant item on their radar is just being able to survive.  It is true there is a working poor in the UK, who just about live with the help of government subsidies in the form of  Working and Child Tax credits.  A support which is needed because wages are kept low, because labour is common in an employers market and because the skills needed to do a job are not what they have.  Being confident also means being able to be calm and collected when giving an answer to a question. Performance anxiety is more likely to affect someone who doesn't have self confidence than it does someone who does.

Lets also look at employers.  They clearly want the best employees they can get so they use the interview process and a cursory look at exam grades.  The first hurdle is to be shortlisted for an interview and this is what exam grades can help pass. As well as a competently completed application form. What an employer might look for is a set of grade "A" or grade "B" applications and then disgruard the applicants with grade "C."  They would not be able to see that perhaps some of those applicants who had these lower grades had a lot more to deal with in their family life than those who were advantaged enough to get higher grades.  Such as a manic depressive mother, or an alcoholic father or a parent with a disability and the child being a full time carer, or a large family with siblings where each child just does not get the time and attention needed.  Or being brought up in a household where poverty rules everything and forces choice on the family and especially children.  Opportunity is not afforded to these individuals because they do not get through the selection process. Whether they are motivated or not they must may not have the skill sets and the family support to raise out of their social class.  Some parents will even feel resentment if their children do better than they have done, get a better job or earn more money or get better grades. Their love comes with a barbed tail and spite veiled in what they say and do. Which is great for the self esteem issue as well.  They will deny such behaviours exist, but they would then be liars because I have seen it and experienced it with my own family.

Being lower class doesn't mean you are stupid, but it sure ensures you are at a disadvantage. When your peers think a good time is to sniff glue or get drunk, stealing is a socially acceptable act and rite of passage then the lessons you learn are dictators of your future.  The kids who fight against this  are considered outcasts and may even be bullied. For being different from the pack makes them an easy target. The in-group feel better about themselves and boost their own extraordinarily lacking self esteem. Working and lower class parents just don't have the time to help coach their children. They can't protect them and the bond which comes with small children is a lot easier to form than the bond which is needed to help a teenager become an adult. A teenager who is fighting against the system and fighting to understand who they are, where as those above the glass floor will have a lot more support.

Wealth brings opportunity and life chances.  Middle class kids are likely to have experienced holidays to farther places and had a diversity of life experience the working and lower class kids don't get exposure to, this can be seen in attitudes towards food.  The great frequenters of fast food chains are certainly not going to be rich kids. They will get the vitamins and minerals from foods they eat, so some will either have obesity problems or cases of malnutrition. Something again the more socially advanced families are sure not to have to worry about. Get a child from a working class family and show them a collection of herbs, then ask them to name them.  I bet the results would be startling when compared to the middle and upper classes.

This glass floor ensures not only is the country not run by the brightest people, it ensures the divide of the classes continues and continues in perpetuity.  For it is a strong family, especially one which sticks together where the glass floor which is really a glass ceiling is broken through.  This country we live in is not a meritocracy and this is a fact.