manual versus non-manual distinction

manual versus non-manual distinction
A broad dichotomy in the study of occupational stratification, which correlates with many social indicators such as income, health, and educational attainment, as well as conditions of employment broadly defined. It is, nevertheless, based on a value-judgement about the status and nature of different occupations in the working class and the middle class, according to the amount of mental (non-manual) as opposed to physical (manual) labour they are supposed to require. A closely related distinction is that between blue-collar and white-collar work. Although widely institutionalized in everyday life and in law, attempts to reach agreed operational definitions of manual and non-manual work reveal that the distinction tends to be arbitrary. This is well illustrated by considering [The entire page is 295 words long]

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