Why Do We Do the Work That We Do? a Normative & Empirical Exploration of the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status & Work Choice
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Why do we do the work that we do? And what, if anything, keeps us from fulfilling work? I explore this question and its relationship with socioeconomic status via two lenses. First, I make a normative claim about the role of socioeconomic status in our decisions over our work, based on a theory of economic self-realization. I claim that, in some circumstances, socioeconomic status can lead to unjust constraints upon our decisions about our economic means in pursuit of our ends. These unjust constraints should concern us, as they constrain individuals’ opportunities to achieve their full potentials and express their agencies. This claim underpins the second, empirical lens, which is based on original survey data on the career decision-making process of graduating undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Respondents' preferences over the role of 10 potential considerations in their choice of career were regressed on a composite measure of their socioeconomic status in order to see if there was a significant relationship between their socioeconomic status and the factors that go into their career decision-making. The results of the study imply, intuitively, that the career choice of those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may be constrained by the need for stability in material circumstances; the results also suggest that those from the middle socioeconomic groups may be constrained by reputational and social status pressures, in line with existing literature. The study also finds that respondents from the highest socioeconomic group seemed to not factor these constraining considerations (be it monetary or social) as heavily compared to every other socioeconomic group. I tentatively interpret the results of the survey as providing some initial empirical evidence for the claim that socioeconomic status can and does impose unjust constraints upon individuals’ career decision-making processes, for all groups except the highest. Areas for further exploration, including the question of how to mitigate these potential injustices, are then discussed.
DOI: 10.17615/ty40-bz42
Author: Chiang Yang, Willow Taylor
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6925140361
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