Introducing social policy as a broadly conceived study of human wellbeing, this fully revised and updated edition examines the ways in which governments and peoples throughout the world attend to, promote, neglect or even undermine the things that make life worth living. These include essential services, such as healthcare and education; the means of livelihood, such as jobs and money; and vital but sometimes intangible things, such as physical and emotional security. Some of these are organised by governments and official bodies. Others are provided by businesses, social groups, community organizations, neighbours and families. Trying to understand all these elements, which together constitute human wellbeing, is the stuff of social policy.