White-Collar Blues (forthcoming in June 2025 from Columbia University Press), examines the rise of a new Turkish upper-middle class and its discontent with work. During the developmentalist era of the 1960s-70s, state-employed doctors, lawyers, and engineers were seen as role models for “making it.” However, with Turkey’s tighter integration into the global economy, the neoliberalism of the post-1980s introduced professional-managerial employees of transnational corporations as the new symbols of success. Focusing on their quality of working life narratives through more than 100 interviews held in Istanbul and New York, I follow these elite workers as they are selected into, survive within, and opt out of corporate careers. Despite their upward mobility, many professionals’ narratives resonate with what I call white-collar blues: burnout and disappointment with demanding yet unfulfilling careers. Extending from the Turkish case, I develop a theory of middle-class alienation that accounts for how middle-class investments in education lead to high hopes, which then clash with the realities of poor work-life balance, low intrinsic satisfaction, and a felt lack of meaning from labor. White-Collar Blues reveals the hidden costs of seeking higher pay and status.
