Why do you think mumsnet has a more wealthy user base than average or do you think it’s full of bullshitters?

[Lurkinginthedarkness]

I’ve been reading mumsnet threads regularly for a while now and have noticed the userbase seems to be far wealthy than the general population, based on the income threads and also other little things that give that feel.
Obviously I’m not saying I think everyone is wealthier than average on here I’m personally a broke loser and I’m sure there’s others like me, but I’ve been blown away by the sheer amount of people saying they earn 60, 70, 80 or even 100k like it’s average.

I personally don’t think it’s full of bullshitters as there are other hints like the fact the spelling and grammar used on here is typically far superior to other sites like facebook and obviously you’re unlucky to have a brilliant job if you’re SPAG isn’t spot on.

Anyway I like mumsnet and have nothing against people being better off than me I’m just musing what do you think it is about mumsnet that attracts more wealthier people typically?

’the ones that want to pay more tax’

Brilliant. That made me laugh out loud, I’ve seen a few of those.

It’s a lot of people but 5% is still 5%. On here it seems to be a lot more than 5%.
Theres other hints that make me think it too like loads of discussion about private school and baby names (preference of the “posh” ones over the “common” ones) plus the SPAG is superior on here to Facebook and other sites, people with good jobs are unlikely to have bad SPAG.

Maybe it was a good point someone made about intelligent people preferring sites with words over pictures and intelligent people are more likely to have good jobs idk though because reddits the same and there’s a lot of stupidity going on over there

Quite possibly full of bullshitters-the ones taking about their income, anyway.

I agree, it seems that more than 5% on here are highly paid.

I think mumsnet attracts a certain personality type or people who enjoy language and discussions. Those who enjoyed education are more likely to enjoy discussions in written form. Those that enjoyed education, probably did well at it. Doing well in education, gives you a better chance at a high paid job.

All of that will shift the distribution from 5% highly paid, to a greater % for those who choose to use mumsnet. Then it's just worth remembering that there are probably almost 1 million highly paid women, so they are not incredibly rare.

I'd also say this isn't a new phenomena, it used to be possible to predict social groups by the news papers people read. Telegraph vs Sun was a very different demographic. With social media, many people use multiple sites but I suspect some of these patterns continue in this new form of media

MN is obsessed with money. The OP & posts that follow I earn 100k, 150k, 250k are predictable and follow the same trend with outrage/faux incredulity, then OP stops posting after day 1. I dont know if people are making shit up. I personally find people trying to pick holes in a person's story tedious. The i cant live on 100k posts feel disingenuous. Not sure why anyone needs validation from strangers online. It's all blah.

For advice on how to manage money there are better sites (thinking MSE) and I think even reddit is pretty good at giving good ideas on money management. I think MN is the equivalent of liking the sound of your own voice when it comes to wealth.

Given this is largely about reading and writing, relatively long form arguments. It's likely to attract a disproportionate number of those highly paid women.

This is the reason for me. I would also humbly say that 120k, which is what I earned in my last role is indeed about 60k in early 00s money.

The reason I have housing wealth now, and the £120k is a nice extra, is because my first London grad job paid a rather fancy, lucky £25k, and I lived in one single room in zone 3 and saved up £10k because CoL wasn't so high and people genuinely had fewer outgoings. (Mine were books, Topshop and noodles. No phone contract or TV or laptops or cars, and Smirnoff Ice was quite cheap). Then before the financial crash, bought a one bed flat with 110% mortgage!! Imagine! do you remember being given money to buy your house?! My future husband was doing the same thing, so when we married we had two small flats to bring to the party already. From there to a larger flat then a house in an area which was rough, but came up around us. So we had quite a big proper grown up house, then you start the positive spiral of accumulating wealth.

Meanwhile our salaries were going up into the 80ks as graduate salaries did. So we got married with a house and combined income of about 170k, before we even started earning that highly.

Much of this I do not attribute this to anything more than being in the right place at the right time, like Boomers and property. I'm no more hard working than anyone, though I am fairly intellectual and just happen to enjoy producing "thinky work" which can often get valued highly.

I find it kind of wild that some posters would read all that boring detail and think "Such SWANK!! I don't believe a word of it!!"

Ha SHL how funny we have been on an almost identical financial trajectory!

Our generation (early 50s) caught the tail end of the housing boom. We bought our first flat in a nice part of London and sold it 3 years later for exactly double what we paid for it.

I would be more likely to honestly state my salary on an anonymous forum than in a real life social conversation though.

I think this post beautifully illustrates why MN is the way it is. People are expected to logically articulate the rationale for their views ideally with humour. It has an Oxbridge debating soiety vibe with a strong idealogical feminist slant. That is going to apeal to a certain demographic.

@Ooihuko

Then it's just worth remembering that there are probably almost 1 million highly paid women, so they are not incredibly rare.

Why on earth do you think that?!

I worked it through in a previous post, if you want to look.

Simply put, there are lots of people in the UK. People think 5% is small but 5% of a large number is big.

Mumnetters are generally cleverer than the average

Are they? based on what? A lot of the posts are batshit eg not answering the door, not going out at night, cutting off a friend because they said something, not seeing obvious red flags in a relationship, inability to accurately count how much fibre you eat daily!

@Ooihuko can you link to something that says that 1m women earn 100k plus?

Not all MNers are intelligent. You have MNers who have to make a MN post to ask about "why can't the government just print money"

You have MNers who didn't even pass maths GCSE

There's an outdated perception that to earn 100k you have to work long hours in a stressful, demanding job. Lots of women on here are likely paid for their expertise not how many hours they work so of course they'll be on MN during the day.

Maybe true but I think a lot of it is envy and good old fashioned sexism. A lot of people are uncomfortable or unsettled by the idea that women can earn that much money.

I don’t see many of these posts (private education) at all, are you specifically looking for them? They exist but in a small % compared to others.

For context though, I would say my friendship circle are normal professional families, but I don’t know anyone (other than people who I work with, but they’re very much colleagues not friends) who doesn’t send their kids to private school. I realise this will sound ridiculous, or as though we are super super rich, but actually it’s just that you tend to have a social circle who are in similar positions. I’ve spent 15 years as a private school parent - from 3 years old - these are my ‘mum friends’, some have become lifelong friends, we have made family friends etc. School is a community and so much of the kids’ lives when they were little revolved around it, so our friendship circle merged to be around that too.

Then you also tend to socialise with people of your own spending power, as it’s difficult financially otherwise. It’s hard to go for dinner if one person wants a 2 for £x at Wetherspoons a tap water and another wants filet mignon and champagne.

Equally, I work with people who until they met me didn’t know anyone who had ever sent their child to private school. They didn’t know really what it even meant - the only reason they became aware is because of my school pick up distance, which is in a totally different city and wouldn’t happen near us in a state school, so I was asked a few times why and how they go to a school so far away.

It tends to be something you’re very much aware of and part of, or something that never touches your life in real life - there’s not a huge middle ground in my experience of private education.

When people talk about typical MN users being ‘highly educated’ - evidenced by good spelling/grammar, knowing the difference between they’re/there/their, and using ‘big’ words, what do you mean by highly educated? Having an undergrad degree? Or more like having a masters or pHD? Because plenty of people have undergraduate degrees these days. I don’t think that makes someone’s ‘highly educated’. Also, if people are talking about formal education, I think that’s a pretty narrow-minded POV. Not going to uni doesn’t make someone unable to spell or use ‘big’ words. I wouldn’t describe myself as highly educated, in a formal sense. I have pretty good A Levels but never went to uni. I had caring responsibilities at home that meant I couldn’t go, even if I wanted to. However I’ve always read widely, and I’ve always written creatively too. Just for fun but I have recently had a couple of things published. You don’t need to be ‘highly educated’ to write and spell well.

Sadly it is a bit more subtle, according to a Houses of Parliament report from last month.

Your top layer figures are correct. However 37% of women vs just 14% of men in employment work part time. Even though part time female workers earn slightly more than part time male workers, while full time male workers earn more than full time female workers, overall part time workers earn much less than full time workers. So much so that the overall gender gap of 12.9% is much bigger than the gender gap for full time workers.

The pool of full time workers available for jobs paying £100K (for only a very few part time jobs do) consists of 86% of the men in employment but only 63% of the women in employment. It would be very surprising if the 5% of workers making £100K came equally from the two groups. That’s before taking the gender pay gap and the motherhood tax into account.

The section on Earnings in the Report did bot discuss high earnings specifically.

Does that include business owners? Lots of us gen x women have set up on our own using our skills from our previous careers and are making £100k plus and working flexibly. Definitely the way forward.

Of course. About 46% of small business leaders are women, representing about 10% of the female workforce according to the report.

Is that pro-rata or in absolute term ? All hospital consultants now majoritively women earn over 100K pro rata, also most GPs, lots of laywers. If that is your earning potential you are likely to have married someone of similar earning potential especially if you are able to work pt.

Well yeah I also didn’t go to uni and I don’t even have a levels but like to think I’m fairly literate. I’m just saying if you head over to facebook you’ll see a larger percentage of people who don’t know basic stuff like the difference between “no” and “know” whereas on here that’s rarely seen

I believe the statistics are in absolute terms.

@Ooihuko There isn’t much readily available information on the £100K threshold per se.

There is a statistic reported from 2018 when about 625,000 men vs 155,000 women had achieved this salary.

The overall gender gap has barely budged, so it would be a happy surprise if we have come anywhere near parity on this.