ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to define and classify dirty work in a Turkish context and to introduce the concept of dirty work to the literature. In the first stage of the study, 321 people were reached through an online survey. We selected 36 occupations (pre-hypothesised 25 dirty jobs and 11 non-dirty jobs) and asked participants to classify them as social, physical or moral dirty work or non-dirty work. As a result of the first study, only 17 occupations were classified as dirty by the participants. In the second stage of the study, occupations that were not classified as dirty in the first stage were administered using the same design to 130 participants. The second study confirmed our first study results except for one occupation (Shoe-shining). The results show both a high level of agreement on the type of physical taint and a consensus that the type of moral taint is one of the main factors that make a profession dirty. The study is important in terms of introducing the concept of dirty work to the Turkish literature and in terms of conducting the classification of occupations in Turkey according to the types of dirty work.