Removing career barriers for working-class women

When people think about discrimination in the workplace, they often focus on one specific issue, such as gender or ethnicity.

This narrow lens poses a significant problem. People aren’t defined by just one characteristic, and neither are the barriers nor challenges they face in both their social, academic and professional world.

Take, for instance, a woman who is also part of an ethnic minority group, lives with a disability, or comes from a working-class background.

Each of these layers of identity brings its own set of challenges. More importantly, they intersect in ways that amplify exclusion and make generic DEI solutions feel inadequate.

Even if those efforts are well-intentioned, they often fail to account for the lived experiences of individuals whose identities don’t fit neatly into one category.

Among these, social class is particularly notable. Unlike gender or race, class is not a ‘protected characteristic’ under the UK Equality Act. Yet it profoundly shapes access to opportunities, cultural fit, and perceptions of competence.

For many of those from working-class backgrounds, earning a degree and landing a professional job should mean they’ve made it.

But they often find themselves subject to additional obstacles, even if they have similar educational backgrounds and qualifications to their middle-class peers.

These obstacles are not about merit or performance. They are about the deeply ingrained and unspoken cultural expectations linked to their class backgrounds

This is specifically evident in elite professions, such as medicine, law, and journalism, sectors which have long been dominated by those from wealthier backgrounds.

Discrimination against working class employees

The Social Mobility Commission found that young adults from better-off backgrounds are more than four times as likely to secure top positions than their working-class peers.

Even when working-class individuals rise up the ranks, many suffer from pay discrimination.

The Commission found that senior managers from working-class backgrounds earned 12 per cent less on average than their more privileged counterparts. For working-class women, the pay gap was roughly twice as large.

But beyond pay and promotion, how are working-class individuals actually perceived in the workplace?

To examine this further, we conducted two studies. The first asked 200 participants in the UK to rate working-class and middle-class men and women on a series of work-related issues.

These ranged from their social value as colleagues to their leadership potential and the impact they might have on a company’s image, innovation, and general working environment.

Working-class women were likely to be seen as less educated, less intelligent, and less competent than their middle-class peers. They were also far less likely to be seen as leaders.

There was only one trait where they outscore others – sociability.

The fact that middle-class employees were viewed more favourably across all other areas suggests that class shapes how these workers are evaluated, how their talent is recognised, and who gets ahead.

This needs attention, because unless we acknowledge the specific influence of class for men and women, efforts to create a more inclusive environment will continue to fall short.

However, these perceptions and evaluation do not operate in vacuum.

People simultaneously navigate these many layers of their identity – including gender, class, and race – to make sense of the challenges they face and respond to them.

How women overcome class in the workplace

To explore this process, we turned our attention to how women from working-class backgrounds, for example, can overcome these barriers?

In our paper, Breaking Through: Paths to Overcoming Class and Gender Challenges at Work, we investigated the experiences of 40 lower-class women working as senior and mid-level managers.

Many recounted encounters with male colleagues and supervisors that included condescending remarks tied not only to their class but also to their gender.

Their accent, appearance, and outlook were often seen as markers of inferiority, rather than difference, to their middle-class colleagues.

Together their stories reveal a deeper truth: these women must navigate not just one barrier, but a layered set of expectations.

Despite this, they found ways to assert their existence and move forward in their career.

This offers a window into how discrimination operates in the workplace, and what these women experienced when they faced it head on.

From the stories we heard, we identified at least two distinct ways that these women faced their challenges of class and gender.

The first was marked by visible resistance and a strong sense of themselves. For instance, one woman said: “I don’t think I had to be worried about what others are thinking.” Another remarked: “I didn’t let it affect me personally or let it make me a victim”.

While these women were able to ignore the negative voices and focus on their self-confidence and perceived skills, others felt overwhelmed and bound by external norms.

For this group, their experiences were marked by emotional highs and lows and a gradual pushing of boundaries and prevailing expectations.

“When you are not at peace with your own self, and when you yourself are struggling to understand things, then everything seems to only be a challenge,” said one woman.

So, what does this research tell us? It reveals that even if people in the same organisation share the same culture and a similar background, the way they navigate the combination of challenges they face may differ significantly.  

And while it is possible to adopt and adapt various strategies to overcome these barriers, the more equitable solution is not to rely on an individual’s ability to adapt to tensions between their various social characteristics.

Instead, we should try to remove those challenges altogether. The first step is acknowledging that people are not defined by one characteristic, nor are the barriers they face. Only then can we respond accordingly.

Further reading:

Why don't more women reach the boardroom?

Six ways to increase inclusivity as a leader

Does hybrid working always increase equality and inclusion?

Can diverse workplaces increase innovation?

Yumna Arif is a PhD researcher at Warwick Business School, specialising in the intersectionality of class and gender and the leadership process. 

Warwick Business School is the only UK business school to offer a fully-funded Foundation Year programme for students from less privileged backgrounds who lack the A-level grades required to access its undergraduate programmes.

The Foundation Year is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary. Learn more about the donors who fund the Foundation Year and how it transforms the opportunities available to young people like Ibrahim Malik.

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