Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain

Reading Modern
Society

Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................3
2. Context of the Book.................................................................................................................3
3. The Author...............................................................................................................................4
4. The background and perspective.............................................................................................4
5. Methodology and Methods......................................................................................................5
6. The book itself.........................................................................................................................5
7. The legacy of the book............................................................................................................7
8. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................7
9. References................................................................................................................................8

1. Introduction
Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay is a book given by a British journalist Polly Toynbee in
2003. This book has a focus on the moral failings of the capitalism and Toynbee advocates for
those who work hard for earning moral pay. The author has used a vivid image in order to
enlighten the plight of poor in our population (Shildrick and MacDonald, 2012). Toynbee have
challenged the society into bringing equality in the equal pay for the diversified jobs performed
by an individual. This report will emphasize on the hard work and the moral pay in the society. It
will cover the overview of the above mentioned book and the situation of the poor in our society.
Also, it will bring out the social methodologies of the author for this research and the ethical
issues associated with the theme of the book. This book will present the perspectives of the
society in relation with the less pay offered to a hard working individual. At that time the author
has taken many small jobs in council housing estate in Clappham Park in order to achieve their
research objective (Gregory and Milner, 2011). The methods used in the investigation of the
main concept is their own perspective observation and the experiences of himself after living
with a minimum wage job. Toynbee have used the experiences in order to questions the values of
the society. This report will cover the influence of the book on the perspective of the society.
2. Context of the Book.
Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay was written in 2003 when there was a situation of poverty
being faced by the society. The question of earning for the living have emerged for an individual.
At that time the social and political situation of Britain was not so good. The author has taken up
a challenge to experience the situation of the poverty and explain it in front of society through
this novel. The perception of the society was that being female is the major cause of poverty.
Also, at that time there was no distribution of earnings (D’Arcy, 2018). Those who were
employed in public sector are able to pay living wages while on the other hand those who were
employed in private sector are exploited at low wages. Moreover, the government have adopted
tax benefit system in order to reduce inequality at that time. This book was a genre of “A
working Life” book which is also based on the life of individual in the working environment. But
the government approach is not a solution of the problems of poverty and low pay. This book
involves the major challenges that comes across the workers in while earning for their living. In
relation to this the aim of the Author is to free 30% of the society from the trap of poverty. The