The role of employers in supporting the provision and providers of care labour takes various forms. Employers of workers in the social care sector are clearly critical. However, there are other important relationships between carers and employers that are less well recognised or understood. A growing number of employees in the general workforce provide unpaid care outside their paid employment for a family member, friend or neighbour affected by long-term illness, disability or old age. Perhaps employers are seen to have a less moral, more instrumental economic stake; we are therefore less inclined to call on them to create a supportive environment for effective and sustainable caregiving alongside employment. However, we suggest that employers play an important role in shaping experiences of care provision. Neglecting to understand their perspectives is likely to be to the detriment of both carers and employers.
Globally, unpaid caregiving is a widespread phenomenon. According to the International Alliance of Carer Organizations (IACO), reported in Embracing Carers, there are 63 million carers internationally, with 67 per cent of them being the primary carer for a household member. Around the world, 16 billion hours are spent providing unpaid domestic and care work. If a monetary value is to be assigned, then the hours spent are equivalent to a substantial portion of global GDP, exceeding 40 per cent in some countries according to conservative estimates. While the economic value of unpaid care work is acknowledged, it does not reflect in measures of the economy. Unpaid or underpaid care work fundamentally remains invisible, and potential costs to the economy resulting from providing unpaid care, e.g. loss of labour and skills and underemployment in terms of hours, wages and skills, are largely overlooked.
Given the ageing global population, it is estimated that care needs will increase significantly, worsening the existing care crisis. By 2030, an extra 100 million older people and an additional 100 million children aged 6–14 will need care.
Increasing demand for care is also an important issue in the UK. Carers UK’s Valuing Carers 2021 report suggests that unpaid carers provide care worth £162 billion a year in England and Wales (similar to the year’s NHS spending budget!). The Labour government’s current economic growth agenda to promote employment, increase productivity and reduce economic inactivity offers fertile ground to explore further the implications of care for employment. Unpaid carers are explicitly mentioned in the Ministerial Foreword to the Get Britain Working White Paper, but they are not a focus of the report. This is surprising, given that the majority of unpaid carers are of working age. Carers UK suggests that as many as one in seven of all employees are unpaid carers, and it is estimated that almost two million employees in the UK will take on this role every year.
Considering the current spiralling social care crisis, working carers are an increasingly critical resource in an already burdened social care system. While much emphasis has been placed on the value of this unpaid care and carers’ struggle to combine care roles with paid employment, things have not improved much beyond the Carer’s Leave Act and the Flexible Working Act. In this regard, we draw attention to employers’ relative lack of voice in the debates concerning working carers. While some employers have policies to support carers, many do not. We argue this could be because supporting working carers is framed as a wider social responsibility and an issue for the social care sector, wider community and voluntary sector organisations. A key stakeholder is thus overlooked, alongside their responsibility, capacity and motivation to support working carers.
Carers are often understandably reticent to discuss the impact of care roles on their paid work, and employers may be unaware they have carers working for them. This limited visibility makes it difficult to identify or attribute monetary/economic value to what skills are lost from the labour force when combining unpaid care with employment failures. What types of carers most successfully juggle these roles? Which groups do we lose altogether from the labour force and at what career stages? What skills are lost? Where are employers more effective at retaining skills, or more motivated to do so? What drives employers to support carers beyond appearing ‘carer friendly’ and meeting CSR objectives? By raising these questions, we propose a more nuanced examination of the ‘business case’ for providing workplace policies to support carers. While there is an estimate of the value to the economy of unpaid care work, there is a limited assessment of its cost to the economy (few reported estimates, e.g. £3.5 billion annually) in terms of lost productivity, skills and expertise. This should be of concern not only to employers but also to the government, and it is unlikely to be solved merely by employers offering family-friendly policies, flexible working and an annual week of paid leave.
In drawing attention to the role of employers in supporting working carers, we recognise that just as diversity is observed in carers – in terms of socioeconomic status and career needs – employers are also diverse (e.g. size, sector, financial resources and skills needs). Will all employers be equally committed to supporting carers? Are the espoused financial costs and benefits the same for all employers? And are employers equally equipped and resourced to support the diverse needs of carers working in their organisations?
There are tensions and complexities of relationships between employers and carers who are in, or wish to be in, paid employment. While there may be a moral and social case that we would all support, we need to better understand the role of employers as key stakeholders and the drivers that may leverage employer support of this critical but diverse group of carers in employment.
Chandrima Roy is an Assistant Professor in Work, Employment and Organisation Studies in the School of Management at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research explores the complex interplay between employment and caregiving, with a particular focus on the UK social care sector. Chandrima investigates care workers’ employment experiences and perceptions of job quality, offering insights with policy implications for employment practices, public service HRM and the retention of frontline care practitioners who support vulnerable populations. She collaborates closely with community partners, charities and care organisations to better understand the social and political tensions surrounding care provision and employment.
Katharine Venter is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Management at the University of Leicester, UK. Throughout her career, she has explored the intersections between various forms of care roles and the dynamics of careers and working lives. Partly inspired by her own experiences of caregiving, Katharine’s research has focused on issues including the work and career experiences of those caring for children whose paths to independence may be affected by chronic illness or disability. She has also examined the tensions inherent in both paid and unpaid care roles within the non-profit and charity sectors.
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