The use of ICT products and "White-collarization" of white-collar workers: An everyday-life perspective

Abstract

White-collarization is a process by which aspirational white-collar workers actively or passively change themselves until they actually become members of the white-collar group, accepting white-collar identification. By analyzing interview data from an everyday-life perspective, we find that ICT products and white-collar workers interact after the former enter the everyday life of the latter. White-collarization endows the life course of white-collar workers with fresh and different meanings, which strengthens their identification with their own groups, forming a specific system of membership identification, and solidifies the white-collar class. The discussion on the form of confirmation and exclusion systems offers a new perspective on social classification theory.