The Social Background of Elite Executives: The Swedish Case

Magnus Henrekson (), Odd Lyssarides and Jan Ottosson ()
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Odd Lyssarides: Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Postal: P.O. Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden
Jan Ottosson: Department of Economic History, Postal: Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

No 1138, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Sweden is often described as a country where intergenerational social mobility is high, but research also shows that social mobility decreases the closer one gets to the extreme top of the income distribution. We study the occupational mobility for an extreme elite group in society: the CEOs of Sweden’s 30 largest public firms since 1945. The study is based on a hand-collected data set consisting of 229 former and current CEOs who grew up in Sweden and were born between the late 1800s and 1970. We have information about paternal occupations for 185 (81 percent) of them. 60 percent grew up in Social Group I, which implies an overrepresentation for Social Group I by a factor of 9.7. Consequently, Social Groups II and III are underrepresented. However, almost four out of ten CEOs born in the 1940s came from Social Group III and toward the end of the period, the share coming from Social Group II roughly doubled to about 35 percent. Wallenberg-controlled firms were slightly more likely to have CEOs with a Social Group III background. More than half of the CEOs have a father holding a managerial position. Seven of the CEOs have a noble surname, which implies an overrepresentation equal to that of Social Group I; however, among CEOs born after 1939 only two come from a noble family, which suggests a drop in the advantage conferred by a noble background. Finally, less than five percent of the CEOs were members of a family that was a controlling owner or had a father who was also a large-firm CEO.

Keywords: Social mobility; Chief executive officers; Elite reproduction; Occupational mobility; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J00 J62 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2016-11-03, Revised 2021-07-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-his and nep-hme
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