Yet while the urban poor are covered by social insurance and labour market interventions for a rate double that of rural areas, those programmes only reach a fraction of the urban poor (i.e. 3-4 per cent)" (Gentilini 2015:8). A significant proportion of the working poor, especially in lower-income countries, work in the informal sector, with employment and wages characterized by irregularity and unpredictability. In this sector, employment-related social protection is not the norm.