New research published in the American Sociological Review suggests that hobbies indicating an upper-class lifestyle can help job-seekers land a position, but only if they are men.

The study involved sending out 316 job applications to various prestigious law offices throughout the U.S. Each office received one application that had been randomly assigned both a gender (indicated by the applicant's first name) and social-class (indicated by the applicant's last name, personal interests, and slight differences in college extracurriculars).

According to New York Magazine's Science of Us, the research used "sailing, polo, classical music" as the high-brow hobbies and "track and field, pick-up-soccer, country music" as the lower-class interests.

The resumes were otherwise identical and included working for Teach for America, an internship with the U.S. district attorney, a bachelor's degree in political science, and a spot in the top one percent of their law-school class at a "tier-two law school."

Of the 316 applications, 22 applicants were granted an interview, despite essentially interchangeable qualifications. While the upper-class man garnered 13 interviews, the upper-class woman received just three, the lower-class woman five, and the lower-class male, one.

"Coming from a higher-class background only helps men," lead author of the study and assistant professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Lauren Rivera told Science of Us. "Given my prior research, we thought that social class background would lift all those people regardless of gender, and that was not the case."

To supplement the data, Rivera and her team spoke with 20 lawyers with hiring experience at large firms. These interviews echoed the findings of the job application experiment.

"When you look at the identity of people charged with hiring decisions in law firms, they tend to come from a certain segment of the population, tend to be privileged men, and they're favoring people" — as well as the employee base and the clients — "who match them culturally," Rivera said.

Not did these discussions suggest that high-brow personal interests served as "classic cultural capital" in a law office, but these attorneys also worried about women coming from a lower-class background sounding "immature on the phone," and that women from an upper-class background were less invested in a long-term career.

Science of Us also cited Rivera's unfortunate advice for female jobseekers: on your resume, "just use your initials."

Caroline Hallemann Senior Digital News Editor As the senior digital news editor for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers everything from the British royal family to the latest episodes of Outlander, Killing Eve, and The Crown.

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