Key points
- Income inequality is high in the U.S., and people tend to have friends with similar socioeconomic status.
- Social relationships are an important driver of educational and occupational success.
- A recent study found that cross-class friendships strongly support economic mobility.
Social connections are the lifeblood of what it means to be human. Relationships are an integral part—if not the integral part—of the human experience. We know this is true for our personal lives; our romantic partners, kids, parents, and best friends are tremendousendships specifically, for our professional lives?
The Importance of Cross-Class Friendships for Career Success
As it turns out, friendships are valuable sources of career capital. In one of the most thorough research investigations on the relationship between friendship and occupational success, a team of researchers examined a variety of social and economic variables from 21 billion friendship formations on Facebook among over 70 million adults in order to understand how friendships shape future income prospects and economic mobility in the United States.1 The U.S. has one of (if not the) highest rates of income inequality among all post-industrialized G7 nations, so this provides a fruitful arena to study.
The results were profound: Having economic cross-class friendships was vital to future income
Typically, American friendships are strongly divided by socioeconomic status. Those from high socioeconomic status backgrounds tend to befriend others from similar backgrounds, while those from low SES backgrounds tend to befriend fellow people from low SES circumstances. This pattern, which has been dubbed homophily, is a common psychological finding: In essence, birds of a feather flock together in a wide range of domains
In this study, researchers showed that those from the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution only had a small share of friends (38.8 percent) who were above the 50th percentile of the economic distribution. Yet the authors also found that intraclass friendships were crucial to future economic success, particularly amongst lower-income people. Cross-class friendship was a significant and positive correlate of upward mobility, meaning people with richer friends had better economic outcomes themselves.
The relationship between cross class friendships and income existed in a variety of different ZIP codes in the US, suggesting it was not just an artifact of a single state or city. However, certain locations displayed this dynamic more strongly than others
Minneapolis, for example, has a larger share of low socioeconomic residents in comparison to Indianapolis, yet people in Minneapolis appear to have substantially more cross-class friendships. Children who grew up in low-income families in Minneapolis went on to have higher incomes ($34,300 at age 35 in 2015) in comparison to children from low-income families in Indianapolis ($24,700 at age 35 in 2015). A $10,000 income difference at age 35 is not trivial, and it was significantly predicted by cross-class friendships even more so than alternative metrics of social cohesion (how tight knit one’s social circle is) and civic engagement (e.g., volunteering).
Why Might Our Friends’ Socioeconomic Status Influence Our Own?
So why does having friends from higher socioeconomic circumstances raise your own income? The best explanation may be that befriending higher SES people affords intellectual network capital. In other words, wealthier friends tend to come with increased access to information—perhaps about the best universities to attend, the best internships to acquire, or the best jobs to apply for
Social networks tend to be information-rich in ways that can pay off directly or indirectly. For instance, research suggests that of all jobs, approximately 20 percent are achieved through cold applications, 20 percent are achieved through close ties (i.e., family members, romantic partners), and a resounding 60 percent are achieved through weak ties (i.e., colleagues, acquaintances, or friends)
The Biggest Takeaway: Institutions Can Help Foster Cross-Class Friendships
It would be too simplistic to conclude that lower-income people should strategically collect wealthier contacts. Friendship is reciprocal, not a transaction—and besides, the burden of crossing class boundaries should not fall only on the people with fewer re
The broader lesson, I argue, is institutional. Schools, workplaces, and community organizations can create repeated opportunities for people from different backgrounds to collaborate, talk, and build trust rather than merely occupy the same space, in addition to underscoring the importance of existing programs (e.g., Big Brother/Big Sister programs)
Friends Essential Reads
Turns Out You and Your Best Friend Aren’t Two Peas in a Pod
Do Birds of a Feather Prefer to Flock Together?
Networking may make many of us cringe—guilty as charged—but the deepest insight here is not that who you know replaces what you know; it is that knowledge and opportunity often move through human relationships. Diversity can put people in the same room—but only real connection determines whether they actually learn from and support one another
Chetty, R., Jackson, M. O., Kuchler, T., Stroebel, J., Hendren, N., Fluegge, R. B., Gong, S., Gonzalez, F., Grondin, A., Jacob, M., Johnston, D., Koenen, M., Laguna-Muggenburg, E., Mudekereza, F., Rutter, T., Thor, N., Townsend, W., Zhang, R., Bailey, M., … Wernerfelt, N. (2022). Social capital I: Measurement and associations with economic mobility. Nature, 608(7921), 108–121
