Stockholm university
Department of Public Health Sciences

Having Privileged Classmates Can Boost Upward Income Mobility

Research from Stockholm University offers insight into how having a close classroom friend from a wealthier background can significantly improve an individual's income in adulthood. Especially for children from low-income families. The study was recently highlighted by the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.

High school students – three girls and two boys – sitting outside on a bench, talking, smiling and l
Photo: Mostphotos

The study, led by Klara Gurzo, a PhD student at the Department of Public Health Sciences at Stockholm University, draws on data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study. The study tracked over 10,000 individuals born in 1953, focusing on their school years in 1960s Stockholm and their earnings between the ages of 37 and 48.

Klara Gurzo
Photo: Stockholm University

"We compared pupils who went to the same class. Some had a privileged friend from the class, others didn’t. Then we followed their income from the age of 37 to 48," Gurzo explains in an interview with Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.

 

At least one privileged friend makes a difference

The results are striking: children from the lowest-income families who had at least one friend with high parental income earned significantly more as adults compared to their classmates from similar economic backgrounds who did not have such friendships.

The research team employed classroom fixed-effects models, allowing them to compare students within the same classroom environment and control for shared contextual factors. This approach helped isolate the impact of individual friendships with economically advantaged peers.

Importantly, the income benefits were most pronounced among students whose own parents were in the lowest income quartile. The findings indicate that having an economically privileged friend in the school class bolsters adult income and upward income mobility of children from families with low income.

 

Impacts on career paths

According to Gurzo, the mechanisms at play may include exposure to new aspirations, improved educational choices, or indirect access to resources through the friend’s family. The influence of well-off peers appears to shape not just academic pathways, but long-term trajectories in the labor market.

Yet Gurzo also acknowledges the complexity of the findings.

“Our primary concern has been that the students who become friends with privileged peers may already be different from the start. And that this could mean that they would have had a higher income in adulthood, even if they had not become friends with one of their privileged classmates,” Gurzo says to Weekendavisen.

The high-quality register and survey data from interviews helped the researchers to address this problem to some extent. Besides comparing children in the same classroom, they could consider rarely available personal characteristics of the children, such as cognitive and social skills.

 

Good social skills attract friends

In the study, the concepts of social and cognitive skills were taken into account. This was measured based on how many classmates identified a student as a friend.

“Our idea was that you have to have pretty good social skills to attract a lot of friends. Maybe you're likeable or dominant, but regardless, it's probably some skills that can also be an advantage later in life,” Gurzo says to Weekendavisen.

Håkan Soold

Facts

The interview with Klara Gurzo was featured in the article Venner af guld (Golden friends) in Danish newspaper Weekendavisen in April.

The research study referred to in the interview, The Impact of Privileged Classroom Friends on Adult Income and Income Mobility: A Study of a Swedish Cohort Born in 1953, was published in 2023 in the Oxford Academic journal Social Forces. The study is part of the research project Reproduction of inequality through linked lives (RELINK).

In addition to Klara Gurzo, the following researchers participated in the study: Olof Östergren, researcher, Bitte Modin, professor, both from the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, and Pekka Martikainen, professor at the University of Helsinki.

 

 

Theme
Health and Living Conditions - Theme page

Last updated: May 28, 2025

Source: Department of Public Health Sciences

eventNewsArticle

standard-article

false

{
  "dimensions": [
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.subject",
      "name": "Global categories",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Keywords",
      "name": "Keywords",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Person",
      "name": "Person",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "department.categorydimension.tag.Tag",
      "name": "Tag",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Category",
      "name": "News Category (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Category.research.news",
          "name": "Research",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Category.about_us.news",
          "name": "About the university",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        }
      ],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Label",
      "name": "Etiketter (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Label.en",
      "name": "Labels (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Label.en.health",
          "name": "Health and Living Conditions",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        }
      ],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "webb2021.categorydimension.Keyword",
      "name": "Keywords (Webb 2021)",
      "enumerable": false,
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "friendships in school",
          "name": "friendships in school",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "social contacts",
          "name": "social contacts",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "privileged friends",
          "name": "privileged friends",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "upward income mobility",
          "name": "upward income mobility",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "social status",
          "name": "social status",
          "entities": [],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        }
      ],
      "localizations": {}
    },
    {
      "id": "Folkhalsovetenskap.eng.lokala.kat",
      "name": "Lokala kategorier Folkhälsovetenskap Eng",
      "enumerable": true,
      "entities": [
        {
          "id": "Folkhalsovetenskap.eng.lokala.kat.nyh",
          "name": "Local news",
          "entities": [
            {
              "id": "Folkhalsovetenskap.eng.lokala.kat.nyh.fo",
              "name": "Research",
              "entities": [],
              "attributes": [],
              "childrenOmitted": false,
              "localizations": {}
            }
          ],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        },
        {
          "id": "Folkhalsovetenskap.eng.lokala.kat.nyh",
          "name": "Local news",
          "entities": [
            {
              "id": "Folkhalsovetenskap.eng.lokala.kat.nyh.om",
              "name": "About the department",
              "entities": [],
              "attributes": [],
              "childrenOmitted": false,
              "localizations": {}
            }
          ],
          "attributes": [],
          "childrenOmitted": false,
          "localizations": {}
        }
      ],
      "localizations": {}
    }
  ]
}