Nepotism & Family Capital
Most of us get a leg up. But that's not really the thing that matters.
By Andrew Burmon
69% Receive Professional Advice From Parents
75% Received No Introductions From Family
Only 4% Received Help Getting an Entry-Level Role
Only 5% Has Describe Self as "Self-Made"
The Upper Middle “Diet Nepotism Survey” examines how members of the oat milk elite 7 derive professional advantages – or not – from family members and family connections.
By looking at nepotism as more than discrete acts of patronage, the survey attempts to determine what forms of professional assistance are most common, what forms are most valuable, and what forms are perceived to be the most valuable (there is, as you’ll see below, a big ol’ disconnect).
Survey results suggest that though most members of the professional managerial class benefit from some form of familial advantage , many are reluctant to admit it or to fully acknowledge the degree to which they are (probably) responsible for their own success.
Americans often talk about nepotism as if it were an aberration – an affront to some kind of pre-ordained meritocracy – when in fact it is as natural phenomena.
In 1963, British evolutionary biologist W.D.
Hamilton formulated Hamilton’s Rule ( r B>C ) to explain why and when animals help their kin.
Hamilton posited that help is forthcoming when r, the coefficient of relatedness, multiplied by B, the reproductive benefit of the help to the helpee, was greater than C, the reproductive cost to the helper.
For example, if a parent has one banana is considering giving it to their child 𝑟 = 0.5, B=1, and C=1.
The kid is shit out of luck because .5*1 < 1.
But if a parent has 100 bananas, 𝑟 = 0.5, B=1, and C=.01 and that kid is gonna eat.
Professional nepotism seems to follow the same law.
The responses indicate that nearly half of respondents (45%) received family help securing an internship or entry-level job, and about a quarter (26%) got help later on – 22% reporting both.
Early career favors are cheap for parents to give, and enormously valuable for children to receive.
But not all favors are discrete or transactional.
Advice – when it’s good – is the cheapest form of nepotism and potentially the most valuable 3 .
Fully 69% of respondents reported getting professional advice from parents 2 .
About 23% said it was worthless 2 , 25% said it was useful only at the start of their career, and 20% described it as consistently valuable.
Unsurprisingly, those who received genuinely valuable advice were concentrated in law, medicine, and strategic corporate roles.
Mentorship adds another layer.
Roughly two-thirds of respondents (68%) reported having a mentor of some kind, but here family prestige made the difference.
