This edited book has emerged from a CRESC1 (Centre for Research on Socio- Cultural Change) workshop held in Manchester in February 2008, which provided a forum to debate ‘Gender, Service Work and the Cultural Economy’. The aim of this collection, based largely on contributions from the workshop, is to explore the social and cultural issues within the economic changes that have given rise to service work, which represents the largest occupational sector (ILO 2008). This sector is often polarized between higher- paid ICT- enabled ‘knowledge work’ and lower- paid catering, cleaning and care work. In order to gain a broad appreciation of working lives, we adopt an inclusive approach with chapters covering a variety of types of service work.