Diet Nepotism

The Upper Middle “Diet Nepotism Survey” examines how members of the oat milk elite 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.

Direct Nepotism

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 (rB>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 eat¹.

Professional nepotism seems to follow the same law. The survey shows 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. Fully 69% of respondents reported getting professional advice from parents. About 23% said it was worthless², 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. Respondents who described their parents as “highly respected in their field” were roughly twice as likely to draw mentors from within their family network – parents, relatives, or family friends. Given Hamilton’s Rule, it’s likely those mentors were more invested.

All told, only 11% of respondents received no help at all – no advice, no connections, no mentorship. And far from earning less, they reported slightly higher incomes. The professional American animal may help smooths the path for his or her children, but ultimate leaves the banana harvest in their hands.

Indirect Nepotism

The discourse around nepotism is often reductive because it’s focused on the “B” values in Hamilton’s equation rather than the ways professional parents make their children employable before they ever have a chance to become self-made. In 2015’s Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs, Lauren Rivera argues that professional parents’ help their kids chiefly by socializing them in such a way that they to present well to employers. This is kind of ease in presentation is often called “polish” and it matter because, as Rivera puts it, hiring managers’ “concerns about shared culture often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity.” 

This “second-hand smoke” form of nepotism is diffuse, invisible, and often more valuable than a family-arranged internship.

That value is reflected by the survey data. Respondents with highly educated grandparents (PhD/MD/JD) reported average household incomes between $150k and $200k, compared with $75k to $100k for those whose grandparents never finished high school. While systemic racism and anti-immigrant bias (extreme forms of pro-“polish” bias) clearly affect these outcomes, the numbers suggest the compounding value of manners, networks, and expectations over generations. Unsurprisingly, respondents’ earnings were more tightly linked to the prestige of their parents’ occupations (law, medicine, finance, business management) than to parental income.

The power of socialization is particularly evident looking at the sharp contrast in responses between children with parents who started businesses (31.3%) and children with parents who didn’t (49.2%)³ or for whom it was just a phase (19.3%). Entrepreneurs prize results over polish – a different orientation to the “personality market” – and that mindset appears to get passed down. Children of entrepreneurs were more likely than others to receive help securing both entry-level and later jobs (44% vs. 36%) and also more likely to describe themselves as “self-made” (27% vs. 16%). This paradox suggests that entrepreneurial families may treat help as tactical, not definitional. Children in these homes learn that success is something taken, not bestowed. As such, one would expect a more dismissive attitude toward polish, which is evident in the number of these respondents willing to adopt the “self-made” moniker. Not a polished move.

Counting Me Bananas (Conclusion)

The “Diet Nepotism Survey” results underscores the facile nature of the discourse about nepotism, which tends to focus on direct nepotism rather than indirect nepotism, which is – at least outside of Hollywood and the Beltway – a demonstrably more powerful force. The survey results also indicate that we understand this (at least to some degree). More than two-thirds of respondents (64.86%) said they “did not like” the term “self-made.” That objection is logical if you believe that (*Home Alone Face*) we do not live in a perfect meritocracy. And that logic should be reversible. If “nepo baby” is the opposite of “self-made,” it’s objectionable on the same grounds. Positions are rarely just given. That happens about as often as someone becoming a success without any help. Not very. Most business gets done in the grey area.

Still, the nepo discourse isn’t going away. In fact, it’s likely to intensify. Consider the effect of rising inequality on the “C” value in Hamilton’s Rule (rB>C). When a person in a position to help their kin can do so without any real cost to their material wellbeing, they will. Whether or not that behavior is stigmatized is irrelevant. The weird twist? That kind of direct help might not matter much outside of extreme cases. So many people are receiving help – Americans are very rich and very educated – that a lot of direct nepotism cancels itself out. The big difference in life isn’t ultimately whose dad knows someone on the board of trustees. It’s whose dad cares. And that comes down to luck.

It’s hard to maintain a discourse about luck. 

The Top 5 Living Nepo Babies

5) Sofia Coppola (1971): Terrible actress. Got to do a career pivot.
4) Kim Jong Un (1984): To be fair, he had to have some dudes killed.
3) The Other Baldwins (Various): Not much there⁴.
2) Paris Hilton (1981): Professional nepo baby. Used to be a thing.
1) Jesus (5 BCE): Works for Dad.