Unpaid care and unpaid carers

Introduction

Unpaid carers are persons that provide support and care to family members, friends, neighbours or others on a voluntary basis – they are not providing care and support as paid employment. A person is a provider of unpaid care if they look after or give help or support to a person who is experiencing long-term physical or mental ill health or disability, or problems related to old age.

Under certain conditions unpaid carers may however qualify for the 'Carer's Allowance' – but the receipt of this allowance should not be confused with paid employment as a carer, for example, because:

• receipt of the carer's allowance is dependant on the unpaid carer providing at least 35 hours of care and support per week, which leaves unpaid carers with little time certainly for full time employment
• and the carer's allowance falls far short of a full-time employment salary – for 2024/25 the carer's allowance stands at £81.90 a week

This article presents statistics published as part of the Phase 1 - Census 2021 topic summaries. These are estimates based on information submitted by householders and other respondents on Census Day 2021 (21 March). More detailed tables have been derived from the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) "Create a custom datasets" for Unpaid care and hours worked and Unpaid care, age and sex.

Key points

• In the Lancashire-12 and Lancashire-14 areas, and in England, the numbers of persons providing unpaid care has declined between 2011 and 2021 (from 133,240 to 112,740 in L-12, from 165,335 to 140,635 in L-14, and from 5,430,005 to 4,678,265 in England); in the Lancashire-12 area this amounts to a reduction of just over 20,000 people providing some unpaid care.
• 9.6% (112,737) of the Lancashire-12 area's residents aged 5 or over provided some unpaid care (England = 8.8%).
• 9.2% (13,279) of Blackburn with Darwen and 10.9% (14,613) of Blackpool's populations provided some unpaid care.
• Ribble Valley is the only authority in the Lancashire-14 area to have a lower population percentage providing some unpaid care (8.5%) than England (8.8%) when using the age-standardised proportions.
• At all geographical levels a higher proportion of unpaid carers provide 50 or more hours of unpaid care than 20-49 hours.
• Provision of 50 or more hours of unpaid care ranged from 3.9% of the population of Blackpool down to 2% in Ribble Valley.  Over 50 hours of care per week were provided most by unpaid carers over the age of 65, though this age group was the least represented for those that provide 20-49 hours of unpaid care.
• Over half of unpaid carers were female, 58.5% in the Lancashire-12 area (similar to the England rate at 59.2%), though in Hyndburn there are more males than females aged 65 and over who provide 50 or more hours of unpaid care. Among under 16 year old unpaid carers males pre-dominate in providing 50 or more hours of care.
• Most unpaid care was provided by people aged 16 to 64. 120 persons under the age of 5 years old were providing some unpaid care in the Lancashire-12 area.
• Census 2021 data showed that there is a greater proportion of people providing unpaid care who are not in paid employment than those who are:  14.5% of carers in the Lancashire-12 area stated that they were not in paid employment because of their caring responsibilities.
• According to Census data, of those that do have paid employment there are generally more people working a standard week than working part time; however the PSS SACE (Personal Social Services Survey of Adult Carers in England, 2023-24) indicated that 10.9% of respondents to the survey were in full-time work compared to 15.7% in part-time work
• In 2021 in the Lancashire-12 area the value of unpaid care, that is if it was paid for at current market rates, stood at £3.7 billion.
• In 2020 it was estimated that by 2024 there will be 40,766 people in Lancashire-12 over the age of 65 providing unpaid care to a partner, family member or other person.  By 2040 this number is estimated to rise by 24.5% to 50,768. (POPPI (Projecting Older People Population Information), 2020). NB: These figures will be updated when the next POPPI estimates are released in 2025.

In Census 2021, ONS has made an age-standardised proportions version of the unpaid care statistics available. This makes comparisons between geographical areas and different points in time more reliable.

See the ONS web pages showing changes 2011 to 2021. This is for lower tier local authorities, counties are not included.

Survey of adult unpaid carers

Every two years, councils with adult social care responsibilities are required by NHS England to conduct the Survey of Adult [unpaid] Carers in England. The survey asks the opinions of unpaid carers aged 18 or over, caring for a person aged 18 or over, on a number of topics that are considered to be indicative of a balanced life alongside their unpaid caring role.

The results of the 2021/22 survey, conducted by Lancashire County Council, found that:

• 28% of unpaid carers have as much social contact as they would like (similar to the North West average of 29%).
• 37% of unpaid carers were satisfied with the support they received from social services (similar to the North West average of 37%).
• 63% of unpaid carers felt consulted/involved in discussions with social services (similar to the North West average of 65%).
• 61% of unpaid carers found it easy to find information about social services (similar to the North West average of 58%).

A full or partial reading of the Lancashire-12 survey results document is recommended. This document has been published by Lancashire County Council and contains much more detail than is reported above.

The national survey results are published by NHS Digital.

 

Page updated September 2024