Family background and graduates' wage expectations ^{CEFR B2}

Researchers followed two groups of college-educated job seekers in China for three months and collected weekly data on how participants adjusted their wage expectations as their job searches progressed. The team investigated whether differences in social class origins help explain persistent wage gaps among equally qualified graduates.

Social class was measured by parental education and family income. The study found that graduates from lower social class backgrounds set lower initial wage goals and were more likely to revise those goals downward when the search felt slow or difficult. Professor Songqi Liu of Georgia State’s management department noted that lower-class students not only set lower goals on average but were also much more likely to adjust their wage goals up or down week to week.

Graduates from higher-class families tended to keep wage goals more stable. The researchers connect this stability to greater access to job search resources—professional networks, career advice and financial safety nets—and to less pressure to support others. The authors warn that early salary decisions can compound over time and reinforce intergenerational inequality, and they recommend that universities and career services add coaching on realistic and aspirational wage setting alongside résumé and interview support.

The research was developed by scholars from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Texas A&M University, the University of Minnesota and Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business, and it appears in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Source: University of Georgia.