Inequalities in unpaid carer’s health, employment status and social isolation

Nicola Brimblecombe and Javiera Cartagena Farias

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Providing higher-intensity unpaid care (higher care hours or care within the household) is associated with negative impacts on people's paid employment, mental health and well-being. The evidence of effects on physical health is mixed and carer's social and financial outcomes have been under-researched. The biggest evidence gap, however, is on how outcomes vary by factors other than type or level of care provision, in particular socio-demographic factors. Our study used two waves of data (2017/19 and 2018/2020) from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study for people aged 16 and older. We investigated the effects of providing care for 10 or more hours a week or within the household in interaction with people's socio-demographic characteristics. Outcomes included mental and physical health, social isolation, employment status and earnings. We found that caring responsibilities interacted with gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status (as measured by highest educational qualification), or age to affect carers differentially in a number of areas of their lives leading to, and exacerbating, key disadvantages and inequalities.

Keywords: employment and earnings; health; inequalities; social isolation; unpaid/informal care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2022-11-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Health and Social Care in the Community, 12, November, 2022, 30(6), pp. e6564 - e6576. ISSN: 0966-0410

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117262/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:117262

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().