> In particular, what do you do when you don't have extremely in-demand skills, and cannot readily take the gamble on being back in the market for a new job?

Oh, I see that (Was that an edit?) In that case, you are in a world of shit. You'd the sub in the relationship and you'd either get used to it, or work your ass off after-hours to get skills and experience that make you more marketable. Nothing magic to that equation; plenty of people do it. It's hard, but better than overworking at a sweatshop

Of course, once everyone does that, that just puts pressure on our jobs. Even for things that seem a mile away--a maid or a gas station attendant--as they move into something white collar, that puts pressure on existing lower-level white collar workers, who in turn respond by doing the same thing.

For any suggestion that fixing something socially is equivalent to fixing it for an individual, you've got to ask yourself: what happens when everyone does it? Otherwise it's just a pleasant-sounding nostrum.

Yeah, but most people don't do that. That's the whole point. It's hard. People are lazy. The reason why we get paid to do what we do is that we climbed that particular mountain. If it was easy, we'd be unemployed. :)

You can be doing what you love and still have a crappy job with low pay and no hours.