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Are those who grow up in poverty more likely to become workaholics?

Dmac77

Dmac77

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 2, 2008
2,165
3
Michigan
As the title says, are those who grow up in poverty/lower middle class, more likely to become workaholics later in life?

I have no proof of this, but I feel like it's true. One of my friends is lower middle class (parents work blue collar jobs, doesn't have a big house, isn't able to have the material possessions that some of his friends who are upper middle class have, absolutely no college savings, etc.). The number one thing that I hear from him is how he's going to get into a good college (he's smart, 4.2 GPA, 35/36 on the ACT, etc.) go to a good law school, and will work his butt off so he doesn't become "the pathetic failures" that his parents are (he has nothing but contempt for his parents because they both dropped out of college out of laziness), and so he can give his future family whatever they could want.

I just feel like smart/driven people who are born into poor families are more likely to become workaholics than people who are born into middle class families; so that they can avoid putting their families through the stress of financial instability that they had to deal with as kids.

What's your opinion?

-Don
 
Many of the people at the top are driven by something. It's either a need to prove themselves or it's, as you friend indicates, a need to get away from the poverty trap. Some go the other route and into a life of crime. I think, however, that it's not necessarily a class driven thing, though obviously in the latter case.
 
My fiancee and one of my best friends who were born upper middle class and they are workaholics. By upper middle class is they pretty much don't have to work their entire life but certainly can't live like they won the lottery jackpot.

My boss is born super rich and made alot more money than his dad did, I'm talking aboot few few hundred million more.

I think it's because they want to have a better lifestyle than they had, like a Lamborghini my friend just bought or a $50 million private jet my boss bought with his own money.
 
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