The son also supervises – gendered transmission and generative mechanisms in the intergenerational reproduction of managerial status

Management is a unique and particularly rewarding form of employment. While research on managerial attainment highlights inequalities based on gender and ethnicity, the role of social origins has been neglected. Moreover, research on intergenerational social mobility does not distinguish specifically managerial origins and destinations. These are significant oversights given the benefits of managerial status and the advantages that the children of managers have in the intensifying competition to attain it. We construct a theoretical and empirical model of intergenerational managerial reproduction from event history analysis that tracks managerial attainment (2000-2019) for over half a million Danish workers (born 1965-1975). Results reveal substantial intergenerational reproduction within managerial occupations and that this inheritance is strongest for sons, particularly those with senior managerial fathers. For children of lower-level managers, reproduction is primarily related to advantages in early life (parental economic capital, educational attainment), but descendants of senior managers additionally benefit from advantages that accumulate later (more propitious career trajectories, elite social connections). Gender and seniority effects intersect to produce a particularly striking advantage for the sons of senior managerial fathers, much of which remains unexplained after testing a large set of potential mediators, implying a considerable role for unmeasured cultural capital.