A job interview in Liverpool. I’m Liverpudlian. “Do you write the way you speak,” I was asked. And that was my greeting, I suppose: welcome to the middle-class world. In this case, journalism. Welcome to the closed world of mores and customs and assumptions and inflections that allow class borders to be policed, admitting those who are granted approval while denying entry to others.
Entering a middle-class profession from a working-class background means all manner of things for society. Consider the recent Social Mobility Foundation report on the social class pay gap, which found working-class employees were paid on average about £7,000 less than those from better-off backgrounds. It’s a colossal price to pay for the sheer circumstance of birthplace and family background. The price is higher for women, who face a pay gap of £9,500. Someone from a working-class Bangladeshi background, or with black Caribbean heritage, can expect losses of £10,432 and £8,770 compared with their white peers. Losses can mount up when forced into playing the UK’s intersectionality lottery of misfortune.
