Being born into a poorer family is associated with lower socioeconomic attainment even when people are provided with identical educational and job opportunities, a pattern known as the “class ceiling.” The class ceiling is generated within organizations, but specific reasons causing this effect are not well understood. We propose that one important explanation why employees from poorer families do not fare as well as their more fortunate co-workers’ concerns differences in the families themselves. We integrate research from sociology and psychology on differences between families of higher versus lower socioeconomic status (SES) with organizational research on specific pathways through which families can constrain employees’ work performance and success. This theoretical integration suggests that higher family demands (in terms of time and conflicting values) and lower family resources (in terms of instrumental support and behavioral scripts) among workers from poorer family backgrounds cause a negative home-to-work influence on employee personal resources, acting as a mechanism of disadvantage reproduction after people join the organization. A field study of early-career employees who managed to obtain a higher education and secure high-potential jobs conducted in Singapore provides support for the model. We propose and test individual-level solutions to the problem. In doing so, we develop and test a psychological intervention that helps employees from poorer backgrounds cope more effectively with higher family demands and low family support. A two-week field experiment utilizing a daily-diary study design provides evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Taken together, this research uncovers a fundamental process through which the class ceiling is generated and offers solutions to resolve the identified issues.