Juggling work and care

 I have had to reduce my hours at work due to increased caring responsibilities, my husband recently had a mild heart attack and I’m having problems dealing with my mother’s worsening dementia.” 

What is the issue?

The UK economy increasingly depends on businesses and employers retaining their skilled and knowledgeable staff, and this includes the millions of people who are juggling paid work with their unpaid caring responsibilities for family members and friends who need their support.

The UK lags behind other countries when it comes to workplace rights for carers and it’s time our workplaces reflect the reality of our lives. Many advanced and further ageing economies have some form of Carer’s Leave in place, including Japan, Canada, the US, Germany, Ireland, France, Belgium, Sweden. Our analysis of other countries’ policies around a statutory right to paid care leave and estimated that paid care leave of at least five days per year could save the UK economy around £3.5 billion a year.

While Census 2021 found that 2.8 million people are juggling work and care across the UK, we think the total could be far higher. In 2019, we estimated that 4.9 million people were doing so – about 15% of the UK’s population. We think a further 2.8 million then began juggling work and care during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking the new total to 7.7 million – the majority of whom are women.

As our population ages the issue of people juggling work and care is only going grow as a challenge. As the number of people providing unpaid care increases, so does the number of people juggling work and care. With one in three people in the NHS now juggling work and care, it is a problem that cannot be ignored.

The stresses and strain of having to juggle paid work alongside unpaid care has already led to hundreds of thousands of people having to leave the labour market. On average, 600 people per day quit work because of a lack of support to juggle work and care – including over 500,000 people in the two years before the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is not only a strong moral obligation to support working carers, but also a strong economic imperative, too.

Carers' existing rights at work

Unpaid carers already have several existing rights in the workplace which are important in supporting them to juggle work and unpaid care, including:

• Time off for emergencies: Employees have a legal right to take a reasonable amount of time off work to deal with an emergency involving someone who relies on them for help as a dependant (eg, a spouse or partner, child, or parent).
  
  
• Right to request flexible working: Employees also have a legal right to request flexible working. Flexible working might be working flexi-time, working from home, job sharing, part-time working, term-time working, staggered hours, compressed hours, mealtime flex, and annualised hours. Employees’ rights to request flexible working were recently enhanced through the passage of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023.
  
  
• Protection from discrimination by association with a disabled person: People who are looking after someone in England, Scotland or Wales who is older or disabled are protected under the Equality Act 2010 against direct discrimination or harassment, including within the workplace, because of their caring responsibilities. This is framed in law as discrimination by association with a disabled or older person.
  
  
• Unpaid Carer’s Leave: the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 became law on 6 April 2024. This new Act gives employees who are unpaid carers in England, Scotland and Wales the legal right to take up to five days of unpaid Carer’s Leave.
  
  

What needs to change?

I gave up a very well paid full-time job to fulfill my caring role and the massive amount of paperwork it comes with. I was self-employed for a while, but have since had to give that up too, due to the volume of ‘work’ required by my role as a parent carer.” 

Carers UK has a long track record of highlighting the impact of care on employment. We do this by developing an evidence base through research with both carers and employers to better understand how unpaid carers can be better supported in the workplace.

Employers for Carers, established by Carers UK as the first formal employer forum, first established in 2009, continues to provide critical support to organisations that want to support their employees who have caring responsibilities. You can find out more about their work and how to become a member here.

Many elements of society need to adapt and change in order to support our growing and changing population of working carers, and to realise the benefits of doing so. While this would deliver clear economic benefits for the economy, employers and businesses, the gains for communities and families are vast.

Access to social care:
To support carers to stay in paid work It is essential that in order there is investment in social care and that affordable and accessible care is available. A quarter (26%) of carers in employment told us in 2022 that they needed affordable and accessible alternative care in order to work. A further 7% said they were at risk of reducing their hours at work and 7% said they were at risk giving up work completely, without access to it. A lack of affordable and accessible care was the primary reason that people said they would have to either reduce their hours or give up work completely – and combined was selected by 1 in 7 (14%) respondents.

Paid Carer’s Leave:
We also continue to campaign for carers in employment to have a right to Carer’s Leave. Our evidence from working carers and employers is that a right to paid Carer’s Leave would support employees to remain in work, and improve their health and wellbeing, while supporting employers with retention and recruitment.

While the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 was a positive step in the right direction, and will benefit over 2 million employees who are currently juggling work and care, unpaid leave provisions have always been more problematic for some workers to benefit from. This is particularly true for those on low pay – as they often cannot afford to take unpaid leave from work – and women, who provide the bulk of unpaid care, are also more likely to be disadvantaged by this.

Our report, 'Taking the next step for working carers - a new right to paid Carer's Leave' (published August 2024), calls for the Government to build on the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 by legislating to introduce a new statutory right to paid Carer’s Leave.

Our long-standing vision is for all working carers to have a statutory right to two weeks of paid Carer’s Leave a year, accompanied by a longer period of up to six months of unpaid leave. However, as employment rights are often built over time, we recommend that a pragmatic next step would be for the Government to introduce a statutory right to five days of paid Carer’s Leave during this Parliament.

We will be working hard to encourage the Government to make this change through the passage of their Employment Rights Bill, as well as enhancing employees’ rights to flexible working.

Our flexible working guide

Supported by Barclays LifeSkills, our ‘Let’s talk about flexible working’ guide has practical information to help you start the conversation about flexible working with your employer. You can download the guide here.