A detailed view of the world of low-paid women workers. It provides a realistic picture of the issues, whilst also offering strategies and innovations that could alleviate some of the worst effects. Topics include balancing the demands of work and family, health care and child care.

Low-Wage Work "As We Know It": What's Wrong/What Can Be Done, Joel F. Handler; 2. Welfare Restructuring and Working Poor Family Policy: The New Context, Mark Greenberg; 3. Barriers to Finding and Maintaining Jobs: The Perspective of Workers and Employers in the Low-Wage Labor Market, Julia R. Henly; 4. Self-Employment: Possibilities and Problems, Susan R. Jones; 5. Shaping Regional Economies to Sustain Quality Work: The Cooperative Health Care Federation, Peter Pitegoff; 6. Quality Child Care for Low-income Families: Despair, Impasse, Improvisation, Lucie White; 7. The Health Care Puzzle: Creating Coverage for Low-Wage Workers and Their Families, Louise G. Trubek; 8. Unemployment Insurance and Low Wage Work, Lucy Williams; 9. Community-Based, Employment-Related Services, Yeheskel Hasenfeld and Joel F. Handler; 10. The Perils of advocacy: Listening, Labeling Appropriating, Kathleen Sullivan; 11. Afterword: What's the Globe Got to Do with it? Fran Ansley