Consolidated Trajectories? Social Class and Earnings Growth over the Life Course

Abstract

What kind of earnings mobility regime defines our society? Are individuals’ earnings trajectories primarily shaped by their social class position, or do trajectories vary within them? These unresolved questions lie at the heart of debates on social class and labor market rewards. To address them, we leverage employment relations theory and data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We use mixed effects models with heterogenous variance components, and latent group mixed effects models. Our findings align with our central argument that the degree of similarity in trajectories within social classes differs across classes. Social class is linked to typical earnings trajectories, with a pronounced division between the salariat and other classes. However, the degree of trajectory similarity varies across classes. Salaried workers show the least tightly clustered trajectories. Fluctuation in earnings is most pronounced for lower-grade and routine workers. Social class outperforms occupational and post-class accounts at predicting earnings trajectories.