White-Collar Opt-Out: How “Good Jobs” Fail Elite Workers

Abstract

Why do elite professionals leave hard-earned, privileged corporate careers? This article examines an underappreciated case of employee turnover, white-collar opt-out, which involves resignations that may not immediately lead to a similar job or life experience, but are instead followed by alternatives to fast-track careers, including seeking another occupation, stay-at-home parenting, or pursuit of leisure and self-exploration. Drawing on 70 in-depth interviews with Turkish professional-managerial employees of transnational corporations located in both Istanbul and New York City, I examine their narratives about the quality of working life and their decisions to opt out through the lenses of worker consent and alienation. I identify the lack of work-life balance and fulfillment with one’s labor as drivers of opting out, showing how these push factors, combined with various pull factors of non-working life and safety nets, encourage elite workers to overcome status anxiety and abandon corporate careers. The article extends labor process theory insights into high-paying corporate occupations, illuminating how so-called “good jobs” may produce a relatively low quality of working life. It also exposes the inherent limits of resource-centered approaches to inequality, showing how alienating work can undermine the quality of life of even upwardly mobile, high-skilled workers.