Review of “Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs”

Jamie Alea   |    Volume Eleven  |   

Laura A. Rivera’s Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs gives us a glimpse into the world of top-tier investment banks, management consulting firms, and law firms and the ways in which their hiring practices reproduce economic privilege. Rivera examines how elite reproduction occurs in labor markets after students graduate from institutions of higher education. Specifically, she investigates how access to the highest-paying elite jobs is closely tied to socio-economic class, cultural resources, and social connections. Her research challenges the belief held by most Americans that individual merit and hard work, not socioeconomic class and social connections, are the most important factors for social mobility.

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