An individual’s socio-economic background can significantly shape their career opportunities. Research consistently reveals career progression gaps linked to socio-economic background. For instance, a major analysis by KPMG found that employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds took, on average, 19% longer to earn promotions than peers from more advantaged backgrounds.
These disparities often represent barriers that are invisible without deliberate measurement. Recognizing socio-economic background as a workplace factor is key to building a more inclusive organizational culture and achieving workplace fairness for all employees.
As part of the rigorous review of its standards, the EDGE Certified Foundation is pleased to announce that organizations working with the EDGE Standards Version 6 can now include socio-economic background in their EDGEplus analysis. This enables organizations to understand and act on how this dimension in intersection with gender affects diversity, fairness, and opportunity in their workplaces.
What Is Socio-Economic Background?
Socio-economic background refers to the social and economic conditions a person grew up in, such as the occupation of their parents or caregivers, rather than their current income or status. These early-life conditions shape access to education, networks, and other resources, with lasting effects on career outcomes.
This background often intersects with other diversity factors. For example, someone who is both a first-generation professional and part of an underrepresented ethnic group may face compounded barriers in navigating corporate life. By including socio-economic background as a measurable factor, employers can make a more objective assessment of background-related disadvantage and uncover disparities that might otherwise go unnoticed.
How Socio-Economic Background Affects Career Progression
There is clear evidence that socio-economic background impacts how quickly and how far individuals progress at work. In the UK, government-backed research prompted the development of employer guidance to help organizations measure and address these gaps.
In the Bridge Group’s five-year analysis of over 16,500 employees at KPMG found that socio-economic background had the strongest impact on progression, ahead of other diversity factors.
These career progression gaps are not unique to one country. Studies in the United States, Germany, and France confirm that socio-economic backgorunds influence advancement to senior roles across sectors and geographies.
By surfacing these hidden dynamics, organizations can start to address them, ensuring that merit and potential drive advancement.
Incorporating Socio-Economic Background into EDGE Standards Version 6
To address these barriers systematically, EDGEplus now includes socio-economic background as a measurable dimension of diversity, fairness, and inclusion. This expansion, introduced in EDGE Standards Version 6, allows organizations to collect and analyze data that captures how socio-economic background, in intersection with gender, shapes workplace outcomes.
The approach was developed in close consultation with the EDGE Standards Review Technical Committee, EDGEplus Advisory Councils, and external experts to ensure global relevance and practical implementation.
EDGEplus Certification allows organizations to identify how the intersectionality between gender and other aspects of diversity namely: gender identity, race/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability, and now socio-economic background affect pay equity, recruitment and promotion, flexible working, professional development and training and organizational culture.
How It Will Be Measured
EDGEplus uses a simple and internationally recognized method to assess socio-economic background: employees are asked, “What was the occupation of the main earner in the household you grew up in?”
This method is based on best practices developed by the UK’s Social Mobility Commission and others. It is straightforward, culturally adaptable, and achieves high response rates across age groups and country contexts.
Organizations can select from standardized occupation categories that reflect broad socio-economic tiers. For example:
- Management or Executive-level Occupation
- Professional or Technical Occupation
- Small Business Owner
- Service and/or Hourly Occupation
- Other / Prefer not to say
And each organization can tailor job examples under these categories to match their local or regional context, while staying aligned with the framework’s intent. This ensures both consistency and local relevance.
Adding socio-economic background to workplace fairness strategies represents a meaningful step toward comprehensive and data-driven inclusion.
The inclusion of socio-economic background in the EDGE Standards Version 6 gives organizations a framework to measure, and act on this factor. Ultimately, recognizing and addressing socio-economic background is about creating a level playing field where everyone, regardless of their starting point, has the opportunity to thrive.
