Most diversity conversations in corporate America focus on race, gender, and disability. These are important. But there is one identity that rarely appears on DEI dashboards, company surveys, or inclusion training slides — being a first-generation professional.
A first-generation professional (FGP) is someone who enters white-collar, corporate, or professional work environments without a family blueprint. Their parents did not work in offices. No one in their household explained what a performance review looks like, how to network at an industry event, or what it actually means to “manage up.” They figured it out alone.
This is not a small group. According to a 2022 report by the Center for First-generation Student Success, approximately 56% of college students in the U.S. are first-generation college students. A significant portion of them enter professional environments carrying knowledge gaps that no job orientation program covers.
This article explains who first-generation professionals are, what specific challenges they face, how workplace culture affects them differently, and what organizations can do to close the gap.
The term “first-generation” in an academic context usually means someone whose parents did not complete a four-year college degree. In the workplace context, the definition expands.
A first-generation professional is someone who:
This definition includes people who may have college-educated parents but whose parents worked in trades, manual labor, or informal economies. It also includes immigrants whose credentials or professional experience did not transfer to their new country.
The key marker is not income or education alone. It is access to professional socialization — the informal education about how workplaces actually function.
When someone grows up in a household with professional parents, they absorb workplace knowledge passively. They hear their parents talk about salary negotiations. They watch how their parent builds a relationship with a manager. They learn when to speak up in a meeting and when to let something go.
First-generation professionals do not get this education. They arrive at their first professional job with a credential but without a cultural map.
Sociologist Annette Lareau introduced the concept of “concerted cultivation” in her 2003 book Unequal Childhoods. She found that middle-class parents actively develop their children’s reasoning, negotiation, and institutional navigation skills. Working-class and poor parents, by contrast, tend toward a parenting style she calls “natural growth,” which builds independence and creativity but does not train children to navigate bureaucratic and institutional environments.
This gap shows up directly in professional settings. Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2016 by Nicole Stephens, Stephanie Fryberg, and Hazel Markus found that first-generation college students — and by extension, early-career professionals — were more likely to experience a mismatch between their personal cultural norms and the norms expected in elite environments. This mismatch produced measurable performance gaps, not because of ability, but because of context.
The knowledge gap includes:
Unwritten office norms. Things like how long to wait before sending a follow-up email, whether to address a senior colleague by first name, or when a meeting is actually just a formality. These norms are invisible to people who grew up watching them in action.
Networking mechanics. Many first-gen professionals feel uncomfortable in professional networking environments. Research from the Harvard Business Review (2020) found that first-generation professionals reported significantly higher levels of discomfort with self-promotion and relationship-building in professional settings compared to their continuing-generation peers.
Salary negotiation. A 2021 Glassdoor study found that first-generation professionals were less likely to negotiate their first offer. Many reported not knowing that negotiation was standard practice.
Understanding of career progression. Knowing that switching companies every two to three years can accelerate your career is considered common knowledge in many professional families. For first-gen professionals, this type of strategic career thinking is often discovered years into their career, if at all.
Beyond practical knowledge gaps, first-generation professionals often carry a psychological burden that affects their performance and well-being at work.
Impostor syndrome is disproportionately common. Impostor syndrome refers to the persistent feeling of being a fraud despite clear evidence of competence. It was first described by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. While it affects professionals broadly, first-generation professionals experience it at higher rates.
A 2019 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that first-generation college graduates reported significantly higher impostor phenomenon scores compared to continuing-generation graduates when entering professional environments. The study linked this directly to the gap between their self-concept and the culture they were entering.
Code-switching is an exhausting daily practice. Code-switching in the workplace refers to adjusting one’s language, behavior, appearance, or communication style to align with the dominant professional culture. For first-gen professionals, this is not occasional — it is constant.
They may suppress their accent. They may avoid mentioning their background in casual office conversations. They may carefully rehearse how to explain their family’s work history if it comes up. This constant monitoring uses cognitive resources that their peers can allocate elsewhere.
Research by Courtney McCluney and colleagues, published in Harvard Business Review (2019), found that code-switching was associated with significant stress and reduced psychological safety, particularly when employees felt their authentic identity was incompatible with workplace expectations.
Class-based anxiety around money and resources. First-gen professionals who grew up in working-class or low-income households often carry a specific anxiety about financial instability. This shapes their risk tolerance at work. They may avoid speaking up about unfair treatment for fear of job loss. They may not take advantage of professional development budgets because they feel guilty spending company money. They may feel unable to take career risks because their income supports family members.
Most companies have not designed their cultures to be hostile to first-generation professionals. The exclusion is structural, not intentional. But it is real.
The informal interview. Many hiring processes include a “culture fit” stage — a casual lunch, a coffee chat, or a walking meeting. These assessments are designed to evaluate whether a candidate will fit in socially. The problem is that first-gen candidates may not know how to perform in these settings. They may not have eaten at upscale restaurants before. They may not follow sports, travel abroad, or play golf — all common informal conversation anchors in professional environments.
A 2019 study by Lauren Rivera at Northwestern University found that elite professional service firms heavily weighted cultural fit in hiring decisions. The firms equated cultural fit with shared extracurricular experiences and social activities — things that skew heavily toward upper-middle-class candidates. First-gen professionals were systematically disadvantaged in this process, even when their technical qualifications were equal or stronger.
Mentorship and sponsorship are not equally distributed. Mentorship — guidance and advice — tends to be accessible to most employees. Sponsorship — when a senior person actively advocates for your promotion — is much harder to access. And sponsorship tends to flow through personal connection.
Senior professionals often sponsor people who remind them of themselves. First-gen professionals, who may come from different social backgrounds, speak differently, or have different reference points, are less likely to trigger that “remind me of myself” response in senior leaders who grew up in professional households.
McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2022 report found that employees who were first-generation college graduates were less likely to have sponsors and less likely to feel they had access to leadership opportunities than continuing-generation peers, even after controlling for performance ratings.
Professional development resources go unused. Many organizations offer professional development budgets, conference attendance, or executive coaching. First-gen professionals underuse these resources at a measurably higher rate. Research published in Administrative Science Quarterly (2021) found that employees from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were less likely to take advantage of discretionary professional benefits, partly due to uncertainty about how to access them and partly due to feeling unentitled to use them.
Recognition depends on visibility. In most workplaces, recognition and promotion depend significantly on visibility — being seen, heard, and attributed for your contributions. This requires specific behaviors: speaking up in meetings, sending summary emails after completing projects, and building a reputation through deliberate self-promotion.
First-gen professionals, shaped by cultural norms of collective contribution and humility, are often uncomfortable with these behaviors. They do the work but do not claim it. Their continuing-generation peers, comfortable with visibility as an expected professional behavior, get the credit.
Data on first-generation professionals in the workforce is still developing, but existing research paints a clear picture.
A 2021 report by Ascend, a Pan-Asian professional network, found that professionals from working-class backgrounds were underrepresented in senior leadership at a rate disproportionate to their presence in the broader workforce. The study noted that class background — often tied to first-generation status — was the most consistent predictor of leadership underrepresentation, even after controlling for race and gender.
According to a Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce report (2019), first-generation college graduates earn 35% less on average over their careers compared to continuing-generation graduates, even when they hold the same degrees from similar institutions. The gap is largely attributed to career navigation, negotiation skills, and access to professional networks.
A Pew Research Center analysis (2018) found that first-generation college graduates are significantly less likely to work in high-paying management and professional occupations compared to continuing-generation graduates, even after educational attainment is accounted for.
These are not ability gaps. They are structural, cultural, and informational gaps — which means organizations can address them directly.
Addressing first-generation professional inclusion requires intentional design. Here is a concrete framework that organizations can implement.
You cannot manage what you do not measure. Most DEI surveys track race, gender, disability, and age. Very few track socioeconomic background or first-generation professional status.
Adding a simple question — “Were you the first person in your immediate family to work in a professional or office-based role?” — to employee surveys gives HR teams data to work with. This data can reveal representation gaps at different career levels, engagement differences, and retention risk areas.
This is one of the highest-leverage changes a company can make. Turn implicit knowledge into documented, accessible knowledge.
Create onboarding materials that explain things like: How do performance reviews actually work? What does it mean to “build a relationship” with your manager? How do you navigate a disagreement with a senior colleague? When is it appropriate to ask for more resources?
These materials benefit everyone but they are essential for first-gen professionals who do not have family members to ask.
Mentorship programs are common. Sponsorship programs are rare. Organizations should create structured sponsorship programs that assign high-potential employees — including those from first-generation backgrounds — to senior leaders who will actively advocate for them.
The key difference from mentorship: sponsors are accountable for advocating for their sponsored employee in rooms that employee is not in. This means putting their name forward for stretch assignments, promotions, and high-visibility projects.
Deloitte’s internal research (2021) found that employees with sponsors were 23% more likely to advance within two years than those with only mentors.
Most managers receive diversity and inclusion training that covers race, gender, and disability. Very few receive training on class-based inclusion or first-generation professional inclusion.
Training should cover: how to recognize when a team member may be navigating unwritten norms for the first time, how to give feedback that does not assume prior professional socialization, and how to actively distribute visibility and recognition across the team rather than defaulting to the most vocal voices.
ERGs for first-generation professionals serve two functions. First, they provide community and peer support for employees navigating professional culture without a family roadmap. Second, they provide organizations with a structured channel for feedback on policies and practices that create unintentional barriers.
Companies including JPMorgan Chase, LinkedIn, and Goldman Sachs have launched first-generation professional ERGs in recent years. These groups have been associated with higher retention rates among their members and with measurable increases in promotion rates for first-gen employees.
Organizations should audit their interview processes, specifically any stage that evaluates “culture fit” or “executive presence.” These criteria are often proxies for class-based conformity.
Replace vague culture-fit evaluations with specific, skills-based competency assessments. Train interviewers to distinguish between communication style (which can be learned) and communication competence (which is relevant). Evaluate candidates on their ability to work within a team, navigate ambiguity, and solve problems — not on whether their small talk feels familiar.
Organizations that take first-generation professional inclusion seriously do not do so only as a social good. There is a clear business case.
Diversity of thought. First-generation professionals bring perspectives shaped by experiences that are fundamentally different from those of their continuing-generation peers. Research by Deloitte (2018) found that diverse teams — including those with socioeconomic diversity — made better decisions 87% of the time compared to individual decision-makers.
Expanded talent pipeline. If organizations are only effectively retaining and advancing professionals who already had a professional roadmap, they are leaving significant talent on the table. As the professional workforce becomes increasingly first-generation, organizations that know how to support these employees will have a competitive advantage in attraction and retention.
Customer and market representation. Many of the customers that organizations serve come from first-generation professional backgrounds. Having employees who understand that experience creates better product design, communication, and service delivery.
First-generation professionals make up a substantial portion of the professional workforce. They bring real ability, strong work ethic, and perspectives shaped by paths that most of their peers have never walked. But they often arrive without the cultural map that makes professional navigation easier — and workplaces have not been designed to acknowledge that gap.
The challenges they face are specific and measurable. The solutions are practical and proven. Organizations that treat first-generation professional inclusion as a core component of their diversity strategy will build stronger, more equitable, and ultimately more effective teams.
The question is not whether first-generation professionals belong in professional environments. They clearly do. The question is whether organizations are willing to examine the structural assumptions built into their cultures — and change what needs to change.
This article is part of a series on underrepresented dimensions of workplace diversity. Related reading: Neurodiversity at Work, Economic Mobility and Career Development, and Building Inclusive Hiring Practices.
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