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White-collar worker

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Office workers

A white-collar worker is a person who performs professional service, 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, consulting, academia, accountancy, business and executive management, customer support, design, economics, engineering, market research, finance, human resources, operations research, marketing, public relations, information technology, networking, law, healthcare, architecture, and research and development. In contrast: blue-collar workers perform manual labor or work in skilled trades; pink-collar workers work in care, health care, social work, or teaching; and grey-collar jobs combine manual labor and skilled trades with non-manual or managerial duties.

Etymology

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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, administrative, and management workers during the 1930s,[1] 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

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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, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and heart disease.[2] Also, working at a computer could potentially lead to diseases associated with monotonous data entry such as carpal tunnel syndrome.[3] Workplace interventions such as alternative activity workstations, sit-stand desks, and promotion of stair use are among measures being implemented to counter the harms of sedentary workplace environments.[4] 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.[5] 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.[5] An intervention to encourage office workers to stand and move reduced their sitting time by 22 minutes after 1 year; the effect was 3-times greater when the intervention included a sit-to-stand desk. The intervention also led to small improvements in stress, wellbeing and vigour.[6][7]

Demographics

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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.[8]

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 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

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Notes

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  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition. Electronically indexed online document. White collar, usage 1, first example.
  2. ^ Schröer, S; Haupt, J; Pieper, C (January 2014). "Evidence-based lifestyle interventions in the workplace--an overview". Occupational Medicine. 64 (1): 8–12. doi:10.1093/occmed/kqt136. PMID 24280187.
  3. ^ Kalika, Lev. "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS): Occupational Disease of White-Collar Workers". Opporty. Retrieved 2020-03-06.
  4. ^ Commissaris, DA; Huysmans, MA; Mathiassen, SE; Srinivasan, D; Koppes, LL; Hendriksen, IJ (18 December 2015). "Interventions to reduce sedentary behavior and increase physical activity during productive work: a systematic review". Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health. 42 (3): 181–91. doi:10.5271/sjweh.3544. PMID 26683116.
  5. ^ a b Shrestha, Nipun; Kukkonen-Harjula, Katriina T.; Verbeek, Jos H.; Ijaz, Sharea; Hermans, Veerle; Pedisic, Zeljko (2018). "Workplace interventions for reducing sitting at work". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2018 (12): CD010912. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD010912.pub5. ISSN 1469-493X. PMC 6517221. PMID 30556590.
  6. ^ Edwardson, Charlotte L.; Biddle, Stuart J. H.; Clemes, Stacy A.; Davies, Melanie J.; Dunstan, David W.; Eborall, Helen; Granat, Malcolm H.; Gray, Laura J.; Healy, Genevieve N.; Jaicim, Nishal Bhupendra; Lawton, Sarah; Maylor, Benjamin D.; Munir, Fehmidah; Richardson, Gerry; Yates, Thomas (2022-08-17). "Effectiveness of an intervention for reducing sitting time and improving health in office workers: three arm cluster randomised controlled trial". BMJ. 378: e069288. doi:10.1136/bmj-2021-069288. ISSN 1756-1833. PMC 9382450. PMID 35977732.
  7. ^ "How can office workers spend less time sitting?". NIHR Evidence. 2023-06-27. doi:10.3310/nihrevidence_58670. S2CID 259679486. Retrieved 2023-07-10.
  8. ^ Van Horn, Carl; Schaffner, Herbert (2003). Work in America: M-Z. CA, US: ABC-Clio Ltd. p. 597. ISBN 9781576076767.

Further reading

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  • Mills, Charles Wright. White Collar: the American Middle Classes, in series, Galaxy Book[s]. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. N.B.: "First published [in] 1951."
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