ABSTRACT
Modern life revolves around the labour market. For most of us, our livelihoods now and in retirement depend on earnings. Children are likely to live in poverty if their parents are not employed. Young people spend many years in and out of school training for the labour market, often subsidised by their household of origin. Those of working age who are not in employment either depend on other household members being in work, or they may be entitled to some form of income replacement from the state. People who are not in households, such as the homeless, are particularly vulnerable to poverty or even destitution. Children in lone-parent households, generally headed by women whose employment choices are restricted by scarcity of affordable childcare and breadwinning female wages, are also very vulnerable. This chapter is about the ways in which earning-or not earning-a livelihood affects the security and insecurity of people’s lives.
