Merit Does Not Start from the Same Starting Line

Merit is often presented as the fairest criterion for distributing opportunities: those who study more, work harder, or possess greater abilities should have better chances of succeeding. But this idea assumes that people have comparable opportunities to develop those abilities and turn them into results. Is that assumption actually true? A study published in 2025 in "Frontiers in Sociology" shows how far this condition is from being a reality in Italy.

The research, conducted by Davide Bussi, Carlotta Piazzoni, Marta G. Pancheva, and Mario Lucchini, examines the relationship between social class of origin, education, and entry into the labor market in Italy. The study compares people from different social classes, also taking into account generation, gender, and geographical area. Its main finding is clear: the family into which a person is born continues to have a concrete influence on how and when they enter the workforce.

The most interesting finding concerns education. In theory, a society in which access to education is more widespread should allow people to overcome the limitations of their social origins: two people with the same level of education should have similar opportunities. The study shows, however, that education only partially reduces the differences associated with social class of origin.

People from economically and socially more advantaged families can, for example, afford to study for longer without having to immediately seek an income. They can also rely on financial support from their families, their social connections, and sometimes the possibility of entering directly into their parents’ professional activities. By contrast, people from more disadvantaged families may be pushed to enter the labor market earlier.

It is significant that men from lower social classes enter the labor market, on average, earlier than those from higher social classes: the median is around 19–20 years for some working-class categories and reaches 22–23 years for the children of professionals, managers, and entrepreneurs. This does not mean that the former are more “meritorious” or that the latter are less capable. It mainly means that starting conditions affect the concrete choices available to people.

So, in order to avoid reproducing inequalities, merit should not be simplistically considered a characteristic that a person possesses independently of their environment. Abilities, educational qualifications, ways of presenting oneself, linguistic and cultural skills, the possibility of undertaking unpaid experiences, or simply being able to wait for the right opportunity are largely shaped by the economic resources and social networks available within the family.

“Merit” becomes a useful and legitimate criterion for evaluating skills and achievements only when we move beyond the simplistic idea that individual results are produced exclusively by the individual, and when we take into account the family and social influences that have helped shape a person’s résumé alongside their individual efforts and talents.

The point is not to argue that every success among people from higher social classes is undeserved, nor that every difficulty experienced by people from working-class backgrounds is the result of discrimination. But the study demonstrates that social origin continues to produce differences in people’s career trajectories—differences that are not erased by education and that have remained largely stable across generations, with even more pronounced effects among women.

The risk, then, is that the language of merit ends up describing as an individual achievement what is, to a considerable extent, the result of a person’s social position. In this sense, invoking merit without questioning starting conditions can produce a paradoxical effect: presenting as meritocratic a system in which social advantages tend to be passed from one generation to the next.

Reference

The influence of social class of origin on labor market entry and the mediating role of education in Italy

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1585459/full