The Regulation of Paid Care Workers' Wages and Conditions in the Non-Profit Sector: A Toronto Case Study

The paper explores the distinctive regulatory space in which care workers' wages and conditions are determined. It draws on a case study of the non-profit sector of Toronto illustrated by the experience of four social services agencies located there. In doing so it examines the intersection between industrial regulation and practice, and other regulatory constraints or mechanisms identified by Lessig (1988). In community services these mechanisms include funding models, the gendered social norms that presume and underpin the valuation of paid care work and the organization of care work in diverse care settings. It is the mix of these regulatory forces and the specific contexts within which they interact that effect particular wage and non-wage outcomes for care work.