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This study documents the work women do to provision for themselves and others. It charts the contours of this work and examines associated responsibilities. The concept of provisioning informed interviews with 100 women. The diversity and range of women's work were surfaced by selecting women from six community groups, marginalized by income, race, and age, in two Canadian provinces. Findings summarize the types of provisioning activities and strategies women use to meet their responsibilities. Because the latter flow through pathways of relationships, negotiating the boundaries of their provisioning responsibilities shapes women's daily work and possibilities for engaging in civil society.

This article examines how young women in community -based young mothers' housing and employment programmes make job and career decisions while balancing school, work and family responsibilities in Canada. The research reveals that these young women's experiences are not reflected in the current academic and policy discourses about youth transitions and work. The analysis shows how broader social relations of gender and class shape the labour market conditions, caregiving responsibilities and understanding of 'at risk' youth through which young women's contradictory experiences of provisioning arise. Provisioning, an expanded notion of work, is used to reveal the dynamics of choice and risk underlying youth, labour and welfare policies and programmes that affect young women's working lives. It is argued that under the current social policy arrangements, 'at risk' young women end up making risky choices that effectively reinforce rather than transcend their marginalized status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]