The DOI matches its Crossref record; 2 of the 2 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
“Looking Good and Sounding Right”: Aesthetic Labor and Social Inequality in the Retail Industry
Abstract
Upscale retail stores prefer to hire class-privileged workers because they embody particular styles and mannerisms that match their specialized brands. Yet retail jobs pay low wages and offer few benefits. How do these employers attract middle-class workers to these bad jobs? Drawing on interviews with retail workers and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, the authors find that employers succeed by appealing to their consumer interests. The labor practices we identify contribute to the re-entrenchment of job segregation, race and gender discrimination, and fetishism of consumption. The conclusion argues against rewarding aesthetic labor and suggests other rationales for upgrading low-wage retail employment.
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WEST, C., & ZIMMERMAN, D. H. (1987) · Gender & Society · doi:10.1177/0891243287001002002 · Cited by 8,954
Leidner, R. (2006) · Social Theory at Work · doi:10.1093/oso/9780199285976.003.0015 · Cited by 39
Cited by
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Van Oort, M. (2019) · Critical Sociology · doi:10.1177/0896920518778087 · Cited by 60
The Labor Market Value of Taste: An Experimental Study of Class Bias in U.S. Employment
Thomas, K. (2018) · Sociological Science · doi:10.15195/v5.a24 · Cited by 44
Labor, Capital, and Machine: Toward a Labor Process Theory for HCI
Qin, Y., & Cheon, E. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3791147 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Williams, C. L., & Connell, C.
- Venue
- Work and Occupations
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-08
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 349-377
- ISSN
- 0093-9285 (ISSN-L)
- 0730-8884
- 1552-8464
- OpenAlex
- W2096025851
- Cited by
- 336
- References
- 2
- FWCI
- 26.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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