To think some people don’t think opportunity is out there and so they remain in a lower standard of living?

[upugotep]

Sort of inspired by the post about what makes a high earner, it reminded me of a friend who has gone through her life literally never thinking she can earn more.

We had massively different backgrounds and it was expected of me that I should go into a professional job and progress etc. Around ten years into our friendship in our very early 30s, my friend was talking about her ‘wealthy’ family friends, whose dad at 50 had just been promoted and was now earning 52k. She followed this up with ‘I can’t even imagine it, I will never be on anything near 50k.’ At this point I was on 58k and hopeful that my pay would increase a lot in future.

I didn’t say anything other than she might be surprised if she put herself out there that more could be earned.

What I found odd about it is that she is highly intelligent, very employable, personable, just brilliant really. It’s purely her lack of belief in another sort of life and her expectations of herself that hold her back. I am slightly better educated than her but only because of my background and she would absolutely be a competitor to me in an interview and probably get the job over me. I actually think it’s a dirty secret that those ‘at the top’ like to make out they are something special and it’s unattainable when actually it’s not. Why on earth should my friend think 50k is unattainable when she was only 31?!

This! I love my job and what I do, I am good at my job and have lots of responsibilities....but I work in the charity sector and will never, never get above £40k. I would have to retrain in something that I do not want to do in the slightest.

Nothing to do with my background, sometimes it's simply about what you are good at or like doing.

While I agree there's an element of class here, I think it's mainly about confidence.

I've watched terrible co-workers from early in my career - who were very confident - end up progressing quickly and earning a lot, simply because they won't stay in a job otherwise.

Likewise I've known brilliant people who have, for example, been made redundant/list confidence then accepted a much much more junior role elsewhere.

The later person I'm talking about had a "posher" upbringing than me, but was way less self assured. I'm not earning about five times her amount - we were once in the same place, and she was better than me. Probably still is.

It's all about confidence, not class, though they're probably intertwined.

This is why confidence and self-belief are so important. It is why private schools are so keen on extra-curricular activities that build confidence. It is also why having parents who encourage and support their children's achievements is essential.

I had a df who belittled and undermined all his dds. Told us all we were useless and ugly, and nobody would ever want us. Several of us gave up, left school at 15 and didn't reach their potential until their 50s. Others, supported by teachers, were told to ignore him, and we made it to university, and on upwards.

The impact of an unsupported childhood can be lifelong. Your friend needs encouragement, not criticism.

I agree. I think a lot of it comes down to confidence, expectstions and knowledge of what opportunities are out there.

My working class mum sent me to private school (on an 'assisted place') and then a good university. My entire childhood and teenage years were about education and eventually getting a good job (so I thought).

I then left uni and got a temp job and, after a few months, said to mum "I need a better job than this, I didn't go to uni to earn £7.30 an hour", to which mum told me she was ashamed of me and didn't raise me to turn my nose up at minimum wage!

I then got my first permanent role on £15000 a year and she told me I should be very pleased indeed to be bringing home £1000 a month and what more could anyone need!

She's been uncomfortable with my career ever since (Im now in a senior role), which leads me to wonder what she was trying to achieve with all of that education in the first place 🤔

I think a lot of people aren't prepared to be flexible, and in many ways 'thinking outside the box' is a similar process to what a lot of entrepreneurs do.

I was talking to a young working class lad at a job today. He was working as a slinger (guiding the crane via walkie talkie) and said he'd started working construction two years ago at 23yo and had just got his crane ticket. Said as soon as he found out how much the crane guy was on he'd started saving as it seemed like the better job sitting in the cab being paid twice what the guys below him in the rain and mud were getting.

Total cost was £3k but he'd immediately been offered a job on £65k which he's starting in a fortnight.

Suprise suprise, not everyone aspires to be extremely wealthy! Many people are happy living a basic, simple or frugal life. Also depending on your chosen career path, it may involve working in a big corporation in a soul draining job to get paid the high wages side of thing (not always I admit). I'd much rather earn less doing something I love and live a basic life than be a corporate wage slave.

I know that if I go for a higher paying job, it follows that it will take more from me, otherwise what am I getting paid for?

The thing is, this is really only true for fairly low-skilled jobs. Jobs which depend on skills or experience which are relatively scarce, there is often very little relationship between pay and what the job "takes" from you. Acquire sufficiently valuable skills and you can probably be paid quite highly for a relatively cushy job in terms of hours, pressure, etc.

I'm an individual contributor in a skilled technical field and earn well. I intend to break six figures before I'm done. I have very normal working hours and not that much pressure, certainly less than many people earning much less.

Some of us actively choose to work in jobs that don't pay well but are doing good in society! Not everything is measured in money. I'm fortunate to still have a good standard of living but I have found a niche that is purposeful and gets lots of satisfaction from

@ThisIsACoolUserName I feel your pain, privileging education and then being a passive aggressive critic is also my mum's trick. I get things like "x (who has by the way a professional qulalication) has taken a few shifts in the pub. They're not afraid to role their sleeves up/work hard." My qualifications and skills and high flying job are almost pitied/sneered at. One side of dh's family just the same, like he was getting ideas above his station. Why can't you just celebrate his success? As others have explained it weirdly separates you from family, like your some kind of black sheep. It's very isolating and lots of people choose not to challenge the status quo....

Yes in my DH's family, anything that is artistic and pays little is considered much better than a 'boring' job. DH's sister once told him that it was all very well for him to do all the 'admin excel bureaucratic' work (he does compliance for a bank) but she was made for 'higher' creative pursuits. i get that playing music is a lot more fun than sitting in an office but there was time when she was claiming housing benefit and this is all paid for by higher rate taxpayers like my DH who may not be in such glamorous jobs (but which do pay between £60k-100k depending on level)

Your job is a personal decision, there is no right or wrong, but imho looking down on people who pick careers that earn more and yet expecting a welfare state (they believe that there should always be benefits and free healthcare) is a bit strange. who do they think will pay for a welfare state?

This seems to be because you've limited yourself to a specific job/sector though.
I completely understand because I trained and worked for a while in the heritage sector and it was exactly as you say, despite most jobs needing quite specific and high level qualifications jobs were hard to get and paid badly, with very few higher level opportunities (and those were incredibly competitive).

So you're probably completely right in that if you stayed in that sector you'd struggle to earn anywhere near £50k, through no fault of your own.

However that's not the same as saying that it is, (and was from the moment you chose your degree and set your path in stone from the age of 18) impossible for you ever to earn £50k. You could have chosen a different career pathway, and could still retrain now if money was more important to you, which was what I did eventually -I really wanted to own my own house and it would never be possible with my earning in that sector. Quite a few people my age (mid 30s) have done the same.

Obviously it's not fair that people are effectively priced out of careers they love and are good at but that's a different question.

It doesn't have to be linked to academics, either -my bil left school with minimum gcses and worked in customer service type jobs for a few years making £15-£18k. Retrained age 25 as a plumber and by 35 had his own business and was making nearly £100k.

So I can see what op means about having the confidence and knowledge to look for other opportunities even if they are out of your comfort zone (although of course there are other elements like familial support, having some financial fall back to cover you while you're retraining etc.)

I think upbringing and family attitudes play a big part in it, from my experience. I feel like I am just like your friend - I don't have a high standard of living, stuck in a mid-rate admin job, stretching money to cover the bills each month.

Growing up, I knew from year 7 that I wouldn't be able to go to uni. It was not about my grades. It was simply We couldn't afford it. Don't even try, because we can't afford uni.
Unfortunatley my family also had a massive chip on their shoulder. Going to uni was something children of the GP and local solicitor did, a kid like me from a stay-at-home-mum and a bus driver did didn't go to uni.

Being brainwashed from a young age, that higher education is "just not what our type of family do" , no wonder I didn't end up with lots of opportunities.

Yes, some job sectors just dont pay as well as others. You can prioritise jobs that pay more but not everyone has the aptitude for these this things.

Ugh she’s already annoying me and I don’t know her!

I’m the child of immigrants who was born and brought up in Croydon - a place where joining a gang or becoming a drug dealer were seriously considered career options in the bog standard comp I went to.

My parents had accents from their country of origin and I picked up the local accent of replacing the ‘th’ at the beginning of words with a ‘d’ sound or if in the middle of a word, with a ‘f’ sound and dropping the ‘tt’ in the middle of words entirely - habits I still slip into occasionally.

My parents had manual labour jobs when they first got here and worked all hours under the sun so were hardly ever home and I was a latchkey kid from a very young age who also had the responsibility of younger siblings to look after. I also had other hardships that I won’t get into however my siblings and I all became successful in our own ways, using a variety of different paths, because our parents drummed it into us that we must - it never occurred to us that we wouldn’t and more importantly couldn’t. At every opportunity our parents pushed, supported and took an active interest in our career paths - sometimes with the help of a slipper or a cooking ladle! My dad’s favourite saying was “If one door closes, another door opens or if all doors are shut, then climb through the window, if the window is locked then you break it”. Education, training and bettering ourselves were pushed down our throats from as early as I remember and it was an expectation that we absolutely would do better than our parents.

So I’m a woman who is as working class as it gets with an accent to match and rather than that holding me back as some people here have claimed, it actually helped me as employers recognised that I had to work 10 times harder to get to the same place as my more privileged counterparts and saw the value in that.

I’m in no way unique or special either, a lot of immigrants and children of immigrants will have a similar story.

My partner on the other hand (we went to the same primary and secondary schools) comes from an environment where it was normal to either deliberately have a baby as a career choice or be “on the sick” as it was called and everyone was expected to know their place and not get above their station. My partner was guilted into not bettering himself or going after any sort of career as those things were not for people “like him” apparently.

Despite him being more intelligent / brilliant / gifted / naturally able than me in every way, my partner never progressed into any sort of career whereas I did - the only reason for that is that we are both products of our upbringing.

(Just to be clear, I’m not saying my upbringing is in anyway better or superior by the way, just that it pushed me career wise. In many ways, the one track approach my parents had also took away my childhood).

It is a shame to be fair that we live in a society that values making money over all else and people in jobs such as the arts which enhance a lot of people's lives get paid rubbish (unless very lucky and become successful which is a small percentage). Alas as that's the society we do live in have to chase the corporate hell to make decent money.

Very valid point. Many immigrants and children of immigrants are dealing with all the class barriers and lack of cultural capital that white British working class populations, plus the additional burden of ingrained racism. Yet many of those groups achieve very high rates of excellent higher education and skilled professional jobs. What exactly explains the educational attainment gap between them and white working class pupils, if expectations don't play a role?

That is, of course, not saying that class and financial resources play no role. Afua Hirsch writes at some length in her book about how her partner, who grew up on a deprived, majority Black council estate in Tottenham, had to have the asceticism and self-discpline of a monk to achieve the law degree that for her, child of affluent middle class parents in Wimbledon, was the path of least resistance.

Some of us actively choose to work in jobs that don't pay well but are doing good in society! Not everything is measured in money.

Not everything does come down to money and I think jobs that do social good should be paid enough for a decent standards of living, without needing to resort to benefits to get by. These jobs though are generally funded through the public purse either directly in the public sector or through third sector receiving significant funding through local government. To fund that we need people who are being paid higher salaries and paying tax and we need those who can working full time rather than working part time and relying on benefits to top up part time wages.

Few years ago there was a lot in media about how women didn't put themselves forward for promotion and pay rises - DH female college had been acting up in a higher role went for it was told she needed more experience they then employed a man with less qualified and considerably less experience - employer were shocked when she left.

DH a lecturer had regular arguments with colleges who look down on their more first generation university students insisting DH expectation are too high - he points out he was once one them - first in entire extended family to get to university and they need to skills to get into their industry.

We had to fight against the kids schools low expectations - it is drip drip drip.

One of our kids is off on an extended access course but he only had confidence to apply because as parents we encouraged it to point sat down and helped him apply - about only one at the school who did so - it's why DH and I did well our parents believing and encouraging us even if our schools wrote us off or though our aspiration should be lower.

Professional jobs just weren't for people like me. I grew up around family friends who all had working class jobs and left school by 16. They paid the bills but nobody aspired to be a high earner because it wasn't the norm. I think there's an ingrained fear of going for something and failing so nobody ever tried. It's easier to pretend it's your choice. Growing up, anyone who aspired for more was mocked and accused of getting ideas above their station.

Thankfully I've been able to shake off the embarrassment and although I'm not a high earner, I earn 28k which is more than most of my family. My dad is a supermarket delivery driver, my mum is the manager of a betting shop (barely pays above nmw), my older sister works in a call centre and my younger sister works in a supermarket. They're the kind of jobs that would induce pearly clutching here but nobody gives it a second thought where I grew up. In the meantime, my office job with a bit of responsibility is called posh.

Confidence is a huge barrier for lots of people. I used to work in care for a few years when I was younger (so MW, hard work) and one of my colleagues told me she wouldn't have the confidence to go for interviews because of her teeth (I'd genuinely never once noticed her teeth).

Another lady had worked there for 20 years and was absolutely brilliant at her job, we encouraged her to apply for a management position. She said she could never be a manager as she was too thick. Eventually our area manager gave her a bit of a pep talk, asked her to apply and she got the job. She never would have applied if she hadn't been encouraged to.

I grew up rurally and there was a milk factory down the road. On the day I turned 16 my dad said "get yourself down the milk factory and get a job"! It was an area of the country with very low aspirations. We weren't encouraged to carry on at school or go to Uni. I was always told Uni was for "rich" people. And that was back in the days when it was free! But I didn't know that.

Long story short, I moved away and did get a decent career. Yet many of my relatives still live in that area and go from one minimum wage job to the next. Even if they wanted to, there just aren't the opportunities there to make decent money. Even with an education, the jobs aren't available and they are happy living where they are and wouldn't want to move.

I guess it will be, like most other things, a combination of nature and nurture.

Some people are naturally cautious, risk-averse, worrying types who find their comfort zone and never move, or do so only when they're out of other options.

And then nurture serves to minimise or exacerbate this as many pp have said - family attitudes to ambition, awareness of and exposure to opportunities, self belief and so on.

DSis and I had the same upbringing and experiences. I am ambitious and she says she wants only to earn the bare minimum to live a comfortable life, prioritising home life and hobbies. I don't think either one of us is necessarily better. I'm richer in money but she's richer in time.

Its all about confidence and self belief. Its about knowing how people look at you or react to you in certain situations and adjusting your behaviour accordingly. Its about being expected to be looked down on. Or its about expecting to look down on others.

It is the invisible class system.
digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/

My in laws are terrible reverse snobs and also anti education, they don’t seem to want their DC and DGC to do better than them which I find baffling. DP is a bit that way too but I am convincing him otherwise. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a massive stumbling block in our relationship at the moment.