HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A white-collar worker is a person who performs professional, desk, managerial, or administrative work. White-collar work may be performed in an office or other administrative setting. White-collar workers include job paths related to
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
, consulting,
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
, accountancy, business and
executive management Senior management, executive management, upper management, or a management is generally individuals at the highest level of management of an organization who have the day-to-day tasks of managing that organization—sometimes a company or a cor ...
, customer support,
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...
,
engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
,
market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Ma ...
,
finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...
,
human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms includ ...
,
operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decis ...
,
marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
, public relations,
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...
,
networking Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...
, law, healthcare,
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
, and research and development. Other types of work are those of a grey-collar worker, who has more specialized knowledge than those of a blue-collar worker, whose job requires
manual labor Manual labour (in Commonwealth English, manual labor in American English) or manual work is physical work done by humans, in contrast to labour by machines and working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands (the word ''manual ...
.


Etymology

The term refers to the white dress shirts of male office workers common through most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Western countries, as opposed to the blue overalls worn by many manual laborers. The term "white collar" is credited to Upton Sinclair, an American writer, in relation to contemporary
clerical Clerical may refer to: * Pertaining to the clergy * Pertaining to a clerical worker * Clerical script, a style of Chinese calligraphy * Clerical People's Party See also * Cleric (disambiguation) Cleric is a member of the clergy. Cleric may al ...
, administrative, and management workers during the 1930s, though references to white-collar work appear as early as 1935. White collar employees are considered highly educated as compared to blue collar.


Health effects

Less physical activity among white-collar workers has been thought to be a key factor in increased life-style related health conditions such as fatigue,
obesity Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...
,
diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
, hypertension,
cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
, and heart disease. Also, working at a computer could potentially lead to diseases associated with monotonous data entry such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Workplace interventions such as alternative activity workstations, sit-stand desks, promotion of stair use are among measures being implemented to counter the harms of sedentary workplace environments. The quality of evidence used to determine the effectiveness and potential health benefits of many of these interventions is weak. More research is needed to determine which interventions may be effective in the long-term. Low quality evidence indicates that sit-stand desks may reduce sitting in the workplace during the first year of their use, however, it is not clear if sit-stand desks may be effective at reducing sitting in the longer-term.


Demographics

Formerly a minority in the agrarian and early industrial societies, white-collar workers have become a majority in industrialized countries due to modernization and outsourcing of manufacturing jobs. The blue-collar and white-collar descriptors as it pertains to work dress may no longer be an accurate descriptor as office attire has broadened beyond a white shirt and tie. Employees in office environments may wear a variety of colors, may dress in business casuals or wear casual clothes altogether. In addition, the work tasks have blurred. "White-collar" employees may perform "blue-collar" tasks (or vice versa). An example would be a
restaurant manager Restaurant management is the profession of managing a restaurant. Associate, bachelor, and graduate degree programs are offered in restaurant management by community colleges, junior colleges A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially a ...
who may wear more formal clothing yet still assist with cooking food or taking customers' orders or a construction worker who also performs desk work.


See also

*
Designation of workers by collar color Collar color is a set of terms denoting groups of working individuals based on the colors of their collars worn at work. These can commonly reflect one's occupation within a broad class, or sometimes gender; at least in the late 20th and 21st cent ...
* Knowledge worker * White-collar crime * Salaryman


Notes


Further reading

* Mills, Charles Wright. ''White Collar: the American Middle Classes'', in series, ''Galaxy Book '. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. ''N.B''.: "First published n1951."


External links

* {{Authority control 1930s neologisms Employment classifications Office work Social classes