• 10% of women and girls in England and Wales are providing unpaid care – nearly 3m in total. [1]

. 

• Women are more likely to provide care than men. Of the 5m people providing unpaid care in England and Wales, 59% are female. [2]

• Women aged 55-59 provide the most unpaid care. In England, 20% of women aged 55-59 are providing unpaid care – that’s 1 in 5 women in that age group. [3]

• Older women are providing the highest hours of unpaid care. Women aged 75 – 79 in England and Wales are more likely to provide over 50 hours of care per week than women in all other age groups. [4]

• Since 2011, there has been an increase in the percentage of women aged 85 and over providing unpaid care in England and Wales. [5]

• People who care for someone and also have dependent children are more likely to have poor mental health and feel less satisfied with life. 27% of so-called ‘sandwich carers’, many of whom are women, show symptoms of mental ill-health, compared with 22% of the general population. [6]

• Over 500,000 women from an ethnic minority group are providing unpaid care in England and Wales, including over 370,000 from an Asian, Arab, Black, Mixed or Multiple ethnic group. [7]

• Over 86,000 LGB+ women are providing unpaid care in England and Wales. [8]

• Over 5,000 trans women are providing unpaid care in England and Wales. [9]

• Women are more likely to reduce their working hours in order to provide unpaid care. Research in Scotland found that women are twice as likely than men to give up paid work to care. [10] Similarly, research in Northern Ireland suggests that women more likely to be pushed out of the labour market due to those caring responsibilities. [11]

Notes

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/socialcare/articles/unpaidcarebyagesexanddeprivationenglandandwales/census2021

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] More than one in four sandwich carers report symptoms of mental ill-health - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

[7] https://www.carersuk.org/briefings/the-experiences-of-ethnic-minority-carers-updated-briefing/

[8] https://www.carersuk.org/briefings/the-experiences-of-lgbt-carers-updated-briefing/

[9] https://www.carersuk.org/reports/the-experiences-of-trans-carers/

[10] https://www.closethegap.org.uk/content/resources/1---Women-work-and-poverty-what-you-need-to-know.pdf

[11] https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/system/files/publications/communities/dfc-social-inclusion-strategy-gender-expert-advisory-panel-report.pdf