Video Summary: Unpaid Care in England and Wales

Transcript – Unpaid Care in England and Wales

This is a short video about the provision of Unpaid Care in England and Wales.

In 2011 the Census included the question ‘Do you look after, or give any help or support to family members, friends, neighbours or others because of either; long-term physical or mental ill-health/disability? problems related to old age?’.
Answers to this question help us to understand more about unpaid care across England and Wales 

Across England and Wales in 2011, just over 10 per cent of people provided some form of unpaid care. Breaking this down, 6.5 per cent of people in England and Wales provided 1 to 19 hours of unpaid care per week, almost 1.4 per cent of people provided 20 to 49 hours of unpaid care per week and 2.4 per cent of all people in England and Wales provided 50 or more hours of unpaid care per week.
The provision of unpaid care across England and Wales is 0.3 per cent higher in 2011 than it was in 2001. This represents a 0.3 per cent decrease in people providing 1 to 19 hours of unpaid care each week, from 6.8 per cent to 6.5 per cent a 0.3 percent rise in people providing 20 to 49 hours of unpaid care per week from 1.1 per cent to 1.4 per cent and a rise of 0.3 percent in people providing 50 or more hours of unpaid care in each week, from 2.1 per cent to 2.4 per cent.

Looking in more detail across England and Wales, the greatest proportion of people providing 1 to 19 hours of unpaid care was in the South West at a little over 7 per cent, the region with the lowest proportion of people providing 1 to 19 hours of unpaid care was in London at around 5 per cent.
For those providing 20 to 49 hours per week, Wales had the highest proportion at around 2 per cent and the South East had the lowest proportion of people providing 20 to 49 hours per week at around 1 per cent.
Wales also had the highest proportion of people providing 50 or more hours of unpaid care per week, at more than 3 per cent. The smallest proportion of people providing this level of unpaid care was in London at less than 2 per cent.
Overall Wales had the largest percent of people who provide unpaid care at 12 per cent, this was followed by the North West and North East at 11 per cent. The lowest percent of unpaid care provision was in London; likely due to its young age demographic.

This chart shows how the provision of unpaid care has changed across England and Wales between 2001 and 2011.
The provision of all unpaid care has increased in Wales and across all but two English regions. The South West experienced the largest percentage increase in the provision of unpaid care and London had the largest percentage decline. 

Finally, this map shows the differing levels of unpaid care provision across England and Wales at the scale of local and unitary authorities. In Wales the area with the greatest percentage of people providing unpaid care was Neath Port Talbot at 15 per cent, this is followed by Torfaen, Carmarthenshire, Bridgend and Caerphilly at 13 per cent. For England the five areas with the greatest percentage of people providing some form of unpaid care were in North East Derbyshire, East Lindsey, Staffordshire Moorlands, St Helens and Wyre, at 13 per cent.