This book offers an account of how groups of economically marginal people have adapt and negotiate the offerings of a 'post industrial' labour market and a welfare system geared towards reintegrating them into formal employment. Through close ethnographic study it highlights collective strategies and responses to labour and welfare changes.

David Smith's research interests include the evolution of the social exclusion concept, the social consequences of industrial and occupational change, welfare reform and comparative social policy. His research for On the margins of inclusion was conducted while at the Department of Social and Political Science, Royal Holloway College, University of London, UK.