Caring for older and disabled relatives is an issue that affects almost every family in the UK, and at some point in our lives we will all care for a loved one or need care ourselves.
Caring without the right support can put serious pressure on carers’ ability to work – with significant consequences for family finances and costs to the economy. In the UK, one in seven employees in any workplace is juggling paid work with care and a 2009 poll by Ipsos MORI found that around one million carers had given up work or reduced work to care, with an obvious impact on the benefits and pensions systems in addition to impacts on individual and family health and wellbeing
Demographic changes mean that more and more people are taking on caring responsibilities and projections show that by 2050, globally, three times more people of working age will be looking after two billion ageing family members. Carers are a diverse group who have a variety of different needs that depend on a range of factors
including the needs of the care recipient, gender, age, as well as employment and family circumstances. Today more and more parents are combining looking after young children with caring for older or disabled loved ones. This is sometimes called ‘sandwich caring’ or ‘dual caring’ and those who fall under this category are usually referred to as ‘the sandwich generation’. But this dual role can sometimes come at a cost and carers may suffer from ill health, face difficulties to access or stay in the labour market or experience financial hardship.
This report looks at a specific category of sandwich carers, namely those ‘who combine looking after a dependent child under the age of 18 with caring for an adult’. However, the sandwich generation can also be considered to include those who support their adult children who are studying, working and trying to purchase increasingly expensive accommodation while at the same time supporting a spouse or their ageing, sick or disabled parents who require an increasing amount of care. It can also include grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren and at the same time supporting other family members. Carers UK will explore these caring relationships in future research.
Despite rising awareness of this ‘sandwich generation’ it is difficult to get a clear understanding of the extent of the caring roles of the sandwich generation. Carers UK and Employers for Carers conducted this research as an attempt to better understand the extra pressure these dual caring responsibilities have on modern families and their implications for policy, public services, employers and the labour market.
Published : 30th November 2012
Publisher : Carers UK [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : Carers UK
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