Facts about working carers : Evidence from the census

Working Carers: Evidence from the 2001 Census for England and Wales

• 2.5 million people in England and Wales combine caring with paid work.
• 1.5 million carers work full-time, and of those, 140,000 care for 50+ hours per week.
• 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years.
• Working carers pay a heavy penalty in terms of their own health. Those with heavy caring responsibilities are two to three times more likely than workers without caring responsibilities to be in poor health.
• Young Bangladeshi and Pakistani men and women are three times more likely than other younger people to combine paid work and caring.
• Men and women who care for 20+ hours a week are much less likely to be in higher level jobs.

How do we know about carers?

The 2001 Census included, for the first time, a question on the provision of unpaid care: 'Do you look after or give any help or support to family members, friends or neighbours or others because of: long-term physical or mental ill-health or disability or problems related to old age?'

This revealed that across England and Wales 10% of the population - almost 5.2m people - provide unpaid care. And almost  3.9 million carers are of working age.

Of these carers

• 1.5 million combine full-time paid employment with unpaid care – 58% of these working carers are men
• 662,000 are employed part-time – 89% of these working carers are women
• 380,000 carers are self-employed

We also know that

• About a quarter of carers who are in full-time paid work have heavy caring responsibilities which take 20 or more hours of their time each week.
• 50% of carers who are themselves permanently sick or disabled, provide others with 20 or more hours of care each week.
  

What do we know about working carers?

Our full report ‘Statistical Analysis - Working Carers: Evidence from the 2001 Census’  shows that:

Employment

• 140,000 men and women are in full-time employment and also have very heavy caring responsibilities, providing 50 or more hours of unpaid care each week.
• Over a third of working carers are aged 30-44 and over a half are aged over 45.
  

Health

• Working carers pay a considerable penalty in terms of their own health.
• Men and women with the heaviest caring responsibilities are two - three times more likely than workers without caring responsibilities to report poor health in the past year. This is a particularly worrying issue among male carers who work part-time.

Ethnicity

• A high proportion of young Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women combine paid work and unpaid care.
• One in eight young Pakistani and Bangladeshi men (aged 16-29) who are in employment also provide unpaid care (compared with just one in twenty five young White British men).
• One in seven young Pakistani and Bangladeshi women who have a paid job are also carers (compared with just one in twenty young White British women).

Geographical distribution

• There are particularly high concentrations of working carers in some parts of the country.
• There are higher concentrations of working carers in South Wales, parts of the Midlands, the North West and the North East than in central and southern England.

Working ‘below potential’

Our investigation shows that carers are found in all industries and in jobs at all levels – caring can happen to anyone. But men and women who provide 20 or more hours of unpaid care a week are clustered in low level, low paid jobs.
Almost 45% of men and 55% of women who are in paid work and caring for 20 or more hours a week are in elementary occupations, ‘process plant and machine operative jobs’ or in sales, customer services or personal services.  Fewer men or women with demanding caring roles are in higher level jobs.

People with very demanding caring roles are also more concentrated in certain industrial sectors.

More men with heavy caring roles are found in the manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail and transport sectors, and far fewer work in the finance and real estate sectors. Compared with other older men, older male workers with heavy caring roles are much less likely to be in managerial and professional jobs.

Women with extensive caring responsibilities are more concentrated in the wholesale/retail, hotels and restaurants and manufacturing sectors than other women workers. Compared with other older women, older female workers with heavy caring roles are much less likely to be in professional and technical jobs.

Changing lives

Caring is ubiquitous, it will happen to almost everyone. Care is part of the ‘social contract’ – over the life course we are all likely to give and receive care. Many more people are living into old age, especially men. The number of men and women aged 85+ is expected to increase by over 900,000 by 2025.  

Life expectancy is rising – but so is the number of years we are likely to live in poor health. In the most deprived areas, average life-time years in poor health are 22 for men and 26 for women – double the figures for the least deprived areas. The prevalence of long-standing illness in the 55-64 age group increased between 1980 and 1995.

Caring can come on unexpectedly - every year:

• 10,000 people have a stroke
• 36,000 people are seriously injured in a road accident
• 27,000 children are born or diagnosed with a serious disability or rare syndrome 
  

These figures come from research carried out for Carers UK by the University of Leeds. You download copies of the full statistical analysis from our research library. more...

This research was commissioned by Carers UK on behalf of the ACE National partnership, and part-funded under the European Social Fund’s EQUAL Community Initiative Programme.