Charity Shops and Pocket Money

What does it really mean to give something away - or to buy something second-hand? And what, in the process, are we choosing not to see?
Laurie Taylor talks to Gaby Harris, Sociologist and Lecturer in Fashion Cultures at Manchester Metropolitan University, about her research on teenage girls and pocket money. Drawing on interviews with 15–17-year-olds, she shows that “pocket money” is far from simple. From parental allowances to part-time work and reselling clothes, Harris reveals how money is negotiated within families, shaped by rules, expectations and inequalities, and how young people use it to carve out autonomy in their social lives.

Triona Fitton, Senior Lecturer in Sociology from the University of Kent, challenges assumptions about charity shops and second-hand consumption. Drawing on research inside charity shops, Triona explores the tension between charitable ideals and commercial pressures, describing a “quiet economy” of hidden labour and everyday decision-making. While donating or buying second-hand can feel virtuous, she argues this can obscure a more complex global system.

Fitton highlights the scale of clothing passing through charity shops, where only a small proportion is sold. Much of the rest enters international second-hand markets, often ending up in the global South, where large quantities are dumped or burned, with environmental and social consequences.

Together, Harris and Fitton show how everyday practices - giving pocket money, clearing wardrobes and buying second-hand - are bound up with wider systems of inequality, value and global exchange.

Producer: Natalia Fernandez
Series Editor: Robyn Read