professional class
Educated working tier
The professional class comprises people whose occupations require specialized education and credentials—doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, professors.
The term often carries connotations of economic comfort and cultural influence, distinguishing this group from both the wealthy elite and working-class laborers.
The professional class tends to cluster in cities with strong job markets.
Critics sometimes use it to suggest insularity or detachment from ordinary concerns.
- credentialsEvidence of qualification or identity
- graduate degreeAcademic credential requiring prior diploma
- salaryFixed periodic employment payment
- expertiseSkill from extensive practice
- practitionerOne who works regularly
six-figure salary · occupation · qualification · employment · proficient · careerist · work-life balance · student loans · meritocracy · economic inequality · white-collar · knowledge economy · cultural capital · knowledge workers · management · socioeconomic · specialization · economic security
- classessubclass, superclass, underclass, caste, tier
- social classstratum, bourgeoisie, proletariat, underclass, elite
- British Classaristocrats, gentry, peerage, commoners, nobility
- Persian diasporaexile community, dual identity, heritage speakers, second generation, chain migration
- Indian DiasporaGujaratis, Punjabis, Sikhs, expatriates, expats
- workersworkers, employee, employees, laborer, laborers
professional classworking class
Manual laborers collectively
blue-collar workers · manual laborers · proletariat · industrial workers · service workers
professional classlower class
Lowest socioeconomic stratum
underclass · working poor · lumpenproletariat · precariat · ruling class
professional, class, profession, profess, professed, professedly, professing, professor, professorial