Carers' aspirations and decisions around work and retirement

Researchers: Caroline Glendinning, Peter Kemp, Hilary Arksey, Rosemary Tozer, Inna Kotchetkova

Funder: Department for Work and Pensions

Duration: May 2004 to September 2005

Background

There is increasing government recognition of the contribution and needs of people who provide unpaid, informal care for chronically sick, disabled, or elderly people. The importance of helping carers who wish to remain in employment was recognised in the first-ever National Strategy for Carers, published in 1999. Paid employment can be important for carers' wellbeing and can help protect against poverty in later life. Since 1997 the Government has introduced a wide range of measures aimed at moving people from welfare to work and tackling poverty and social exclusion. The Department for Work and Pensions then commissioned research on the aspirations and decisions of carers about caring, work and pensions.

What was the purpose of the study?

The overall aims of the research were to understand the relationship that carers have with the labour market and in particular their attitudes to, and decisions about, caring, paid work and retirement. Specific objectives of the research were:

• To identify and review previous research on the relationships between carers and the labour market, including the decisions that carers make about caring, paid work and retirement
• To understand the decisions that carers make about care, work, retirement and pensions and the factors that influence those decisions.
• To explore the work and retirement aspirations of carers.
• To consider the effectiveness of the support available to carers in enabling them to remain in or return to work

The findings allowed us to ascertain what can be done to help carers remain in work, or return to employment after an episode of caring.

How will the research be conducted?

There were two elements to the study:

• Literature review: a review of recent UK literature on carers and employment.
• Primary research: qualitative research in four different localities (a high labour demand area; a declining industrial area; an inner city area; a rural area). In each area, interviews were conducted with 20 people with substantial caring responsibilities who were of working age or approaching retirement.
  Focus groups were also held in each locality with:
  • staff working in Jobcentre Plus offices who had experience of advising carers
  • practitioners in local authority social services departments who were responsible for assessing carers' needs
  • staff or volunteers working for carers' organisations

Publications

Show Abstract...

2008

Combining work and care: carers' decision-making in the context of competing policy pressures, 2008
Arksey, H. and Glendinning, C., Social Policy and Administration, 42, 1, 1-18.

2005

Carers' Aspirations and Decisions Around Work and Retirement, 2005
Arksey, H., Kemp, P. A., Glendinning, C., Kotchetkova, I. and Tozer, R., Department for Work and Pensions Research Report, vol. 290.

Carers' aspirations and decisions around work and retirement, 2005
Arksey, H., Kemp, P. A., Glendinning, C., Kotchetkova, I. and Tozer, R., Department for Work and Pensions Research Summary, 290, Department for Work and Pensions.

Professional press

Princess Royal Trust for Carers E Bulletin, 55, November 2005. Research: Carers' aspirations and decisions around work and reitrement