The Social Class Gap In Negotiation

There is a class ceiling in career advancement – lower class individuals get paid less and attain less power. In the present research, we focus on a path that potentially reinforces class inequality – negotiation. Two studies that combine analyses of a representative employee survey (n = 7,884 Australian workers) and a survey study (n = 300 American adults) show that lower-class individuals are less likely to negotiate for themselves at the workplace, relative to their upper-class counterparts. Class differences in experienced power and assertiveness explain this gap. Given that the negotiation difference may be critical in exacerbating disparity in pay and career advancement, our findings shed light on potential interventions and designs that may mitigate the class disparity.