Why are White collar working class more respectable than blue collar?

Cianos

Blue collar workers can often earn more, and i'd wager that they're more likely to enjoy their work than the average office drone. Yet white collar workers seem to gain a higher social class standing.

Has society gotten to a point where anything requiring manual work demotes your social class?

My own idea on this is that wearing a shirt and tie can give the illusion of importance. Because almost everyone working in an office, from data entry to the director, looks essentially the same, the observer can't tell what position he or she holds.

JohnK

A notion of importance to a degree I suppose but I always got the impression it was tied to education and what that implies with the presumption that the office worker would be more likely to have progressed through the education system while the manual labourer was assumed to have left school as early as possible to get started in the workforce. This in turn implies a degree of personal wealth on behalf of the white collar worker to support themselves through college and that they are mentally superior to those who didnt.

miec

This in turn implies a degree of personal wealth on behalf of the white collar worker to support themselves through college and that they are mentally superior to those who didnt.

Ouch...I think that is an extremely narrow view of intelligence. An early school leaver may lack a formal education but they could be highly intelligent all the same. Mental superiority is either there or not, one does not automatically lead to the other.

A plumber can have genuis intelligence and a degree educated person may have just barely scrapped a pass and be utterly clueless in the working environment.

silverharp

its a very subjective issue and difficult to pin down in an era where someone can be an employee, contractor or self employed, but there is a tendancy that the better prospects in society go to those that work with their minds and not their hands.
On top of that then you then have perceived social values. So if you roll out a teacher and self employed plumber from central casting and assume they earn broadly the same money or even that the plumber earns more , whats going on? My own guess is that the teacher will identify with "middle class" values whereas the plumber will identify with more working class values. The two people will be less likely to meet socially and then you end up with a gap where one group is perceived to be different, their kids willmay go to different schools and be involved with different activities and so the cycle persists.


couldnt resist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ9CxInz23Q

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Wow, these are such pigeon hole terms akin to a class system, one which exists and to a large part is on the way out in England, and one which nearly became established here during the Celtic Tiger.
I can only speak from what I have seen and while there is a certain amount of 'jobs for the boys/school boys' in some circles, for the most part your background simply does not matter. And blue collar/white collar does not matter, oft times it is a person who has climbed his way up who is far more capable than any rivals and as such gets the better position.

censuspro

miec wrote: »

Ouch...I think that is an extremely narrow view of intelligence. An early school leaver may lack a formal education but they could be highly intelligent all the same. Mental superiority is either there or not, one does not automatically lead to the other.

A plumber can have genuis intelligence and a degree educated person may have just barely scrapped a pass and be utterly clueless in the working environment.

Yes but education and intelligence are also not the same thing. A person can be highly intelligent and also highly ignorant.

jacaranda

censuspro wrote: »

Yes but education and intelligence are also not the same thing. A person can be highly intelligent and also highly ignorant.

We're all ignorant about many things. I myself have little or no knowledge about how to send a rocket to the moon, and that knowledge is not based on my intelligence level. It's based on the simple fact that I have never examined it closely.

Education fosters intelligence for many people, although we recognise that academic intelligence is not necessarily the same thing as innate intelligence. IQ is often thought of as a good indicator of innate intelligence, although many members of MENSA are also highly academic.

We are all ignorant of the things which we don't know about. Being ignorant of a subject is no reflection of the level of intelligence of a person.

I'm not sure where the op found stats to show that blue collar workers often earn more than white collar workers. I'll bet the stats don't bear examination and if the OP could publish the stats, or give a link, then lets examine them.

Cianos

jacaranda wrote: »

I'm not sure where the op found stats to show that blue collar workers often earn more than white collar workers. I'll bet the stats don't bear examination and if the OP could publish the stats, or give a link, then lets examine them.

I don't have stats. I used the word "often", because I'm sure a significant amount of blue collar workers earn more than at least the lowest earning office workers. I didn't say "more often" as I'm not claiming that most blue collar workers earn more than most office workers.

Besides, it's about respectability rather than earnings, earnings is just one element involved.

Zombrex

Cianos wrote: »

Blue collar workers can often earn more, and i'd wager that they're more likely to enjoy their work than the average office drone. Yet white collar workers seem to gain a higher social class standing.

Has society gotten to a point where anything requiring manual work demotes your social class?

My own idea on this is that wearing a shirt and tie can give the illusion of importance. Because almost everyone working in an office, from data entry to the director, looks essentially the same, the observer can't tell what position he or she holds.

It is because as a society we have always prized education and drive for learning, and we associate white collar work with this.

Stereotype of course, but there you go. Same reason people tend to think more highly of someone with a Masters than an electrician who left school at 16.

jacaranda

Cianos wrote: »

I don't have stats. I used the word "often", because I'm sure a significant amount of blue collar workers earn more than at least the lowest earning office workers. I didn't say "more often" as I'm not claiming that most blue collar workers earn more than most office workers.

Besides, it's about respectability rather than earnings, earnings is just one element involved.

I'm not so sure. If you take into account the whole benefits package across the whole working life, I am fairly certain that white collar workers earn more than blue collar workers.

That's because white collar jobs are generally more skilled than blue collar jobs, and as a society we tend to reward those with more skills, or more valuable skills.

Put crudely, pretty much anyone can dig a ditch, but not everyone can keep good accounts for digging the same ditch.

Gurgle

jacaranda wrote: »

I'm not so sure. If you take into account the whole benefits package across the whole working life, I am fairly certain that white collar workers earn more than blue collar workers.

That's because white collar jobs are generally more skilled than blue collar jobs, and as a society we tend to reward those with more skills, or more valuable skills.

Put crudely, pretty much anyone can dig a ditch, but not everyone can keep good accounts for digging the same ditch.

This has been utterly screwed up in Ireland for the last 15 years, but what you describe is certainly the normal situation and its where we're heading back to now.

Coriolanus

Blue collar can earn more now, than white collar maybe, but in the history of the terms that wasn't the case.
It's only in the last few decades that "blue collar" work has seen appropriate renumeration.

johnnyskeleton

Cianos wrote: »

Blue collar workers can often earn more, and i'd wager that they're more likely to enjoy their work than the average office drone. Yet white collar workers seem to gain a higher social class standing.

Has society gotten to a point where anything requiring manual work demotes your social class?

My own idea on this is that wearing a shirt and tie can give the illusion of importance. Because almost everyone working in an office, from data entry to the director, looks essentially the same, the observer can't tell what position he or she holds.

First of all, it's got nothing really to do with the actual colour of your shirt!

The higher social standing tends not to relate to the amount of money someone does, or even their industry as such; rather it denotes a position of authority. For example, on a building site the developer and architect would be "white collar" jobs as they have the responsibility, at the end of the day, to make sure everything goes well. By contrast, the plumbers, electricians etc while bearing a level of responsibility, do not have the final say in the project.

Equally, while a mechanic or publican might earn more money than, say, a doctor or TD, they can finish work of an evening and forget about it, while the doctor or TD will always be on call and will always bear responsibility for anything that goes wrong within their domain.

Another example would be in an organisation such as the army or the gardai where there is a clear divide between the NCOs and Officers (or Gdi/Sgts and Officers). Again, more to do with being in a managerial type roll than the actual level of remuneration (e.g. a beat garda could earn more from overtime than a higher grade without overtime).

So the respect comes from the level of authority and/or responsibility rather than the amount of money earned or the type of work engaged in.

As I said at the start, it's not about the actual colour of the shirt - so someone working in a basic office job would have no greater or less respect in my opinion than someone working in a basic manual labour job.