 Home support work in “grey zones of employment”: A case study of the Cash-for-care system in Quebec 
The Chèque emploi-service (CES) is a direct funding home care support service program implemented in Quebec in 1996 in response to the demands of people living with disabilities. The use of the CES has since been widely extended, mainly among the elderly. Inspired by various «cash-for-care» models, the CES allows for greater control and personalization of service provision, but also for significant budget savings. Our case study exposes how unpaid labour contributes to the cost-effectiveness of the program. Three dynamics underlie this phenomenon: 1) the deskilling of the home care services sector, 2) the deregulation of the employment relationship induced by direct funding, and 3) successive budget cuts and service reductions. We show that the confluence of these three dynamics results in the emergence of a «grey zone», i.e. a space of uncertainty and arbitrariness within which the working and remuneration conditions are subject to renegotiation. Unpaid labour is then tied to the power and dependence balance between users and workers.