2012 - Keele University
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Why are the low paid always with us? Inaugural lecture

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Posted on 11 May 2012

Professor Carole Thornley, Keele School of Management, this week delivered the latest lecture in the University's series of professorial Inaugural Lectures for 2011 – 2012.

In her lecture, "Why are the low-paid always with us?", she explained that mature capitalist economies are organised into pyramid hierarchies of earnings, income and wealth, which spill into political and economic power and social status. Earnings are an important flow into broader income and wealth inequalities. The system is viewed by some as a meritocracy (nascent or real) – of ability, of skills, of returns to risk and investment. Yet the distribution of earnings remains remarkably invariant, and parts of society are stubbornly 'losers'.

The lecture addressed the complex causation behind low pay and challenges a number of conventional views: that the low-paid are always 'them' not 'us' and are small in number, that they are concentrated in the private sector, that low-paid jobs equate readily with low ability or skill, and that the system itself is 'rational' or 'meritocratic'. The lecture drew upon large-scale surveys and field research in the health service and local government, as well as a range of statistical sources, classic writing on equalities and personal experience. It also assessed the impact of the National Minimum Wage and realities of life for the 'working poor'.

Carol was also interviewed on radio stoke on 8 May 2012

The last lecture in the series is on Monday, 11 June, 2012 - Professor Andy Hassell, Medicine, "The patient with arthritis, the medical student and the rheumatologist: influencing tomorrow's doctors".

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