Combatting Carer Poverty Project

Caring for older, ill or disabled relatives, unpaid, is something that most of us will do in our lifetime - 2 in 3 of us according to research.[1] There are an estimated 5.7 million unpaid carers in the UK today.[2]

However, people who provide unpaid care have greater risks of ending up in poverty. In 2016, it was estimated that 2.1 million unpaid carers were in poverty[3] and more recent research has found that carer poverty had risen from 24% to 29%.[4] There are, however, a lot of gaps to be filled to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying causes, extent and effect of poverty on different carer groups. Moreover, the development of clear effective solutions is what is currently missing to aid better advocacy in this area.

This project aims to combat carers’ poverty by improving the evidence base on carers’ overall poverty as well as on different factors driving higher poverty rates, including high intensity caring, gender, ethnicity, disability and multiple caring responsibilities.

The project will run until January 2025 and:

• Assess and test different short, medium and long term policy interventions which would prevent and reduce carer poverty
• Use a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to inform the work, including involvement from unpaid carers
• Provide a robust basis for further advocacy work
• Provide detail on different groups of unpaid carers
• Provide a UK wide report to be launched in parliament as well as smaller reports for England, Scotland and Wales.

This work will be running alongside Carers Northern Ireland’s Carer Poverty Commission and it will provide evidence and outcomes for Wales and Scotland, allowing a devolved approach aimed at nation governments to combat carers’ poverty.

We are grateful to the Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust for supporting this work.

The project is supported by Baroness Lister, chair of the External Advisory Group, which is made up of experts and stakeholders across the sector to help guide the project.

[1] carersrightsdaynov19final-2.pdf (carersuk.org)

[2] The most recent Census 2021 puts the estimated number of unpaid carers at 5 million in England and Wales. This, together with ONS Census data for Scotland and Northern Ireland, suggests that the number of unpaid carers across the UK is 5.7 million.

[3] New Policy Institute, https://www.npi.org.uk/files/2114/6411/1359/Carers_and_poverty_in_the_UK_-_full_report.pdf

[4] Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s UK 2023 Poverty Report.

External Advisory Group

We are very grateful for members of the External Advisory Group for their advice and guidance on this research project.

Unpaid carers involved in the project

We also would like to thank the unpaid carers who have given up their time to engage and contribute to this project whether this is through participating in the External Advisory Group meeting, focus groups or interviews to help inform the research findings.