Episode description

'Low pay, no pay' Britain. Laurie Taylor talks to the sociologist, Tracy Shildrick, about her prize winning study of individuals and families who are living in or near poverty. The research was conducted in Teesside, North East England, and focuses on the men and women who've fallen out of old working class communities and must now cope with drastically reduced opportunities for standard employment. Also, the US sociologist, Kimberly Kay Hoang, discusses her study into Vietnamese sex workers who've become American wives who, contrary to their hopeful expectations, end up as primary breadwinners in their new country.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.