Blackcoated Worker

Abstract

Blackcoated worker refers to workers who engage in non‐manual work, in which people exercise their brain instead of brawn . These workers form an important occupational group that comprises different levels of professionals, clerks, managerial, and administrative staff in a wide variety of office settings spread across many sectors of society, such as civil service, commercial, and industrial. Also known as “white‐collar proletariat,” “pencil pusher,” and “pen driver,” these workers display unique economic characteristics, social attributes, and status marks, which carry special implications on their position in the class stratification of society. It is also the title and subject of a seminal study of class position and class consciousness by British sociologist David Lockwood.