MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER)

Can an Employee Participation Initiative Improve Mental Health? | MIT Sloan Can having a greater voice on the job improve mental health? A new paper in the American Journal of Public Health finds signs the answer may be “yes.”

Can an employee participation initiative improve mental health? A new paper in the American Journal of Public Health finds signs that the answer may be “yes." Team of authors includes @elkelly.bsky.social, Co-Director of @mitiwer.bsky.social. Learn more about this research: tinyurl.com/yzjjyfmu

We're looking forward to welcoming our collaborator Erin Kelly as we kick off another semester of hybrid Social Demography Seminars this Thursday (2/5) at noon ET. Please register to join us!
@mitiwer.bsky.social @elkelly.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social
hsph.me/sds_with_Eri...

We think they should!

People often assume that socioeconomic background doesn't matter beyond going to an elite school or college - that after education, the effects are "washed out".

But our paper shows that socioeconomic background matters for career progression... (3/22)

📖🎓SETTING: US tenure-track academia
📈📉DATA: NSF's Survey of Doctorate Recipients 1993-2021.

This is a representative sample of all graduates of US PhD programs in STEM and Social Sciences. We see snapshots of the careers of tens of thousands of people. (4/22)

❓How to measure class❓
We use PARENTAL EDUCATION🧑‍🎓

- first-gen college grads
- parent w/ BA
- parent w/ non-PhD grad degree (JD, MD, MBA, EdM...)

We're less interested in PhD parents b/c reflects academia-specific advantage, not generalized socioeconomic advantage (5/22)

🚨We find a large class gap:🚨

*Conditional on PhD program attended*, first-gen college grads are
➡️10% less likely to end up tenured at an R1, and
➡️tenured at places ranked 11% lower

compared to their PhD classmates who had a parent with a (non-PhD) grad degree. (6/22)

This gap is not just about institution type or prestige - it also shows up in earnings and job satisfaction.

So it is *not* the case that first-gen college grads are trading off higher pay or better job satisfaction for jobs at lower-ranked institutions. (7/22)

The gap is *not* driven by differential selection out of academia into industry. There's no class gap in ending up tenured *anywhere* conditional on PhD - the class gap exists entirely on the intensive margin - WHERE someone is tenured.

(This was surprising to us). (8/22)

The class gap emerges on the tenure-track job market, conditional on PhD program attended...

... but it *ALSO* exists when getting tenure, conditional on fixed effects for tenure track institution.

The gap is big! 6.6 percentage points less likely to get tenure (~9%) (9/22)

Why might this gap emerge? We explore a few mechanisms:

1 - Research Productivity
2 - Choice/Preferences
3 - The residual: Social and Cultural Capital, Networks, Recognition, Hidden Curriculum etc...

(10/22)

RESEARCH: We control for high-dimensional measures of research output - number of papers, first-, last-authored papers, citations, journal impact factors, NSF awards...

but it only closes 1/3 of the gap in tenure rank, and <1/5 of the gap in the rate of getting tenure. (11/22)

Why are we interested in class at all?

Orgs almost never think about socioeconomic background background when they think about diversity or inclusion...

This chart shows 600 large US firms' DEI goals/reporting in Sep 2024. Almost none mention socioeconomic background. (2/22)

📢now forthcoming in ECMA!

The Class Gap in Career Progression: Evidence from US Academia

Class is rarely a focus of research or DEI in elite US occupations.

Evidence suggests it should be: we find a large class gap in at least one occupation - tenure-track academia...🧵

3 Questions: Why meritocracy is hard to achieve In his book &quot;The Meritocracy Paradox,&quot; MIT Sloan Professor Emilio J. Castilla explains why meritocracy is challenging for organizations to achieve in practice — and what leaders can do to ma...

Why Meritocracy is Hard to Achieve: New Q&A with Emilio J. Castilla @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social: news.mit.edu/2026/3-quest...

To first-gen or low-income background respondents who answered that their socioeconomic background disadvantaged them, we asked about mechanisms.

Again overwhelmingly, factors like: academic norms, the hidden curriculum, and limited access to networks or mentorship show up

Perceived impact of someone's own socioeconomic background on their academic career outcomes *during or after* their PhD

including initial placement after graduation, research productivity, grant and fellowship opps, long-term career trajectory (e.g. getting tenure)

Reasons why people thought first-gen college grads would get worse academic placements than their PhD classmates from more advantaged backgrounds:

very overwhelmingly:
1. Hidden curriculum
2. Networks and mentorship
3. Geog, financial, time constraints
4. Soft skills and/or bias

America’s job-quality crisis and how to revive workers’ pay, dignity, job advancement, and economic well-being This essay focuses on the drivers of the job-quality crisis and concrete policy responses to address those drivers.

1/ As we reflect on 2025, we rounded up the top 10 stories from the EG website that stood out the most this year. See what made the list. 🧵 Starting at 🔟, @mitiwer.bsky.social's Erin Kelly breaks down drivers of poor job quality & policy responses to address them:

Choose the human path for AI | MIT Sloan To realize the greatest gains from artificial intelligence, we must make the future of work more human, not less.

“I believe that we can work to invent a future where artificial intelligence extends what humans can do to improve organizations and the world.”—Richard M. Locke, John C Head III Dean @mitsloan.bsky.social, in new essay: mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-t...

AI is reinventing hiring — with the same old biases. Here’s how to avoid that trap | MIT Sloan The AI hiring revolution doesn’t have to be a story of automated bias, argues MIT Sloan’s Emilio J. Castilla. Tough questions and constant monitoring can lead to fairer systems.

New article on pitfalls of AI use in hiring, by Emilio J. Castilla @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/bdhpmcv2

Beyond Job Displacement: How AI Could Reshape the Value of Human Expertise — Digitalist Papers Many observers fear that the pursuit of transformative AI or artificial general intelligence (AGI) presents a challenge to the existing global order. Their worry is that the US and China, the two glob...

In The Digitalist Papers, @davidautor.bsky.social and Neil Thompson envision potential scenarios for how AI will transform work.

“Automation’s impacts on both employment and wages depend not only on how many tasks are automated, but which," they write.

www.digitalistpapers.com/vol2/autorth...

What Facilitates—or Impedes—Upward Economic Mobility: An IWER Research Compendium | MIT Sloan What facilitates or impedes upward economic mobility for employees? This compendium highlights research and analysis on this topic by MIT IWER scholars.

Check out our new online compendium of recent research by @mitiwer.bsky.social faculty on factors that affect upward economic mobility: tinyurl.com/4uw7syhj

Don't miss the new issue of our @mitiwer.bsky.social newsletter, which includes a focus on research about upward economic mobility: tinyurl.com/2emkdxyt

Este profesor del MIT sabe por qué falla la meritocracia: "Invertir en contactos es tan importante como invertir en educación"" Emilio J. Castilla teme que, tras 30 años en Estados Unidos, su español se haya oxidado en cuanto a precisión. No es así. Este catalán, catedrático de Gestión Empresarial en...

Professor Emilio J. Castilla @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social was recently profiled in the Spanish newspaper @elmundo.es.web.brid.gy for his work on #meritocracy: www.elmundo.es/papel/el-mun...

Read about a day in the life of a PhD student at @mitiwer.bsky.social, Alex Busch: news.mit.edu/2025/day-in-...

Nice new profile of MIT Professors @natewilmers.bsky.social @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social & Rohit Karnik of MIT Mechanical Engineering, for their skill at mentoring graduate students: tinyurl.com/yajarpas

‘Squashing people’s voices’: Boston federal worker who decried SNAP cuts on MSNBC now faces firing by Trump administration - The Boston Globe A USDA employee in Boston says the Trump administration is retaliating against her for speaking out.

“There’s public interest at stake here. We want to encourage employees, and certainly those who represent employees, to speak honestly and candidly on issues of concern to the workforce and the people they serve.”--Tom Kochan @mitiwer.bsky.social @mitsloan.bsky.social: tinyurl.com/y4xfsjzx

I *highly* recommend @brankomilan.bsky.social and @laywilliams.bsky.social superb books on the history of thought on economic inequality.

And if you want to see them discussing these topics, with @undercoverhist.bsky.social @johncassidysays.bsky.social and myself, video below.

Stone Centre Dialogue on Inequality in the History of Economic and Political Thought YouTube video by Stone Centre at UCL

Last was a star-studded panel on inequality in the history of economic & political thought at @stoneeconucl.bsky.social w/@brankomilan.bsky.social, @laywilliams.bsky.social, @johncassidysays.bsky.social, @undercoverhist.bsky.social & @annastansbury.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5N_... (6/6)