This article by Janine Berg features in the World Social Science Report 2016. Throughout most of the world, earnings from work are the most important source of household income. Berg highlights that while these earnings depend on where the person works and what the person does, they will also hinge on the governance of the labour market, through macroeconomic policies that support full employment and via the institutions that regulate the workplace, such as unions, collective bargaining, minimum wages and the regulation of employment contracts. This contribution argues that over the past several decades, many governments have neglected full employment as a policy objective, and these labour market institutions have been weakened.