Jay Ginn

The Meaning of Informal Care: Gender and the Contribution of Elderly People

‘Caring’ and ‘carers’ are words in frequent use in social policy, but their meaning is often vague and undefined, encompassing a wide range of activities and relationships. This paper discusses the meaning of caring and focuses particular attention on older carers. Secondary analysis of the 1985 Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) Informal Carers Survey data shows that of the estimated six million informal carers in Britain, the largest contribution is made by women in their early 60s, and that elderly men are more likely than younger men to be carers. The bulk of informal caring work, in terms of total time spent, is provided by co-resident carers, most of whom are a spouse or parent of the dependant. However, the largest number of those receiving help live in separate households, and these are mainly parents or parents-in-law of their carers. The emphasis on elderly people as a ‘social burden’ neglects their contribution as providers of informal care. Over a third of informal care to people over 65 is provided by elderly people. Elderly men and women provide equal amounts of co-resident care, reflecting gender equality in the care of elderly spouses. But among younger people marked gender differences are apparent in co-resident care, and in the provision of informal care to elderly people living in separate households.

Gender Differences in the Relationship between Paid Employment and Informal Care

This paper analyses the circumstances under which providing informal care has an adverse impact on paid employment, using data from the 1990 General Household Survey which identified 2,700 informal carers. The relationship between informal caring and employment participation is complex and differs by gender and marital status. Paid employment is lowered for adults providing care within their household. The effect is greater for women than for men, and varies with the closeness of the kin relationship between carer and care-recipient. Women caring for a handicapped child are least likely to be in full-time work. Care for a spouse depresses both mens and womens employment. The effect of caring for a co-resident parent is least for married men and greatest for married women. The assumption that womens increased labour force participation will reduce their availability as informal carers for elderly parents is largely unfounded. This care is mainly for elderly parents living in another household, and is associated with reduced hours of employment but not lower overall rates of employment. The norm of combining paid work and informal caring results in very high total hours of informal and paid work.

Changing patterns of pension inequality: the shift from state to private sources

Reform of welfare in Britain has sought to shift the balance of pension provision towards the private sector, with consequences for older peoples sources of income. The paper uses data from the General Household Survey to examine changes in older peoples income from the state and from private pensions from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, focusing on gender and class inequalities. Although state pensions and other benefits remained the major source of income, especially for women, the relative contribution of private pensions to total income had increased substantially for men. Receipt of private pensions had become more widespread, with narrowing gender and class differences in coverage among older people. However, gender inequality in the amount received had widened and the relative advantage of different occupational groups had changed. Personal pensions had had little impact on the distribution of income among older people, and provided much smaller amounts of income than occupational pensions.

Balancing Home and Employment: Stress Reported by Social Services Staff

The paper aims to contribute to an understanding of how stress from the combined responsibilities of home and employment varies according to the family circumstances and employment characteristics of women and men. For women, family responsibilities are associated with shorter hours of employment and lower occupational achievement, whereas for men, marriage is a career asset. Yet the reason for womens underachievement is disputed: some researchers claim that womens part-time work in low-paid, low-status jobs represent womens voluntary choice. Others argue that womens employment options are constrained by their domestic responsibilities; and that reducing hours of work and modifying career aspirations may represent one way of balancing home and employment so as to minimise stress. Data are used from the National Institute of Social Work (NISW) Workforce Survey of over 1000 women and men in four broad types of work in the social service departments of five English local authorities. Information is available on staffs perception of stress from combining paid and unpaid roles. We examine whether there are gender differences in reported stress among those who have structurally similar domestic circumstances; whether gender differences in stress can be explained in terms of occupational segregation and hours of employment; and whether the lower stress reported by part-time employees is independent of family responsibilities and type of occupation. A key concern is to assess whether part-time employment enables women with family responsibilities to avoid high levels of stress. There was increased stress on those staff with dependent children or with informal caring commitments. Men reported higher stress than women, irrespective of family circumstances, but the difference disappeared once account was taken of type of work and hours. Family responsibilities and employment characteristics had independent effects on stress levels. Type of work, in terms of level of responsibility, had more influence on stress than hours worked. Among full-time non-manual staff, women with family responsibilities experienced more stress than equivalent men, suggesting that womens occupational advancement is achieved at greater cost in terms of stress than mens.

Gendered Meanings of Care Work Within Late Life Marital Relationships

Most care of older, ailing or disabled people within the home is carried out by a spouse. This paper examines late life marriage and the gendered consequences of caring for older married people in England. Qualitative interview data are analysed to contrast the sense of autonomy of older men and women while caring for a spouse and after widowhood. By encouraging older people to reflect retrospectively on the meaning of their caring roles, we illuminate the process of adjusting to transitions after long-term marriage. The research data indicate that gendered roles and expectations are crucial in understanding the mainly negative experience of older women as carers, in contrast to the more positive experience of older men.

Patterns of Employment, Gender and Pensions: The Effect of Work History on Older Women's Non-State Pensions

Gender inequality of income in later life is linked to earlier employment through the major role of occupational and personal pensions. In addition to womens lower earnings, their diverse patterns of employment, in terms of the timing of periods of full-time, part-time and non-employment, may affect non-state pension income. In this paper, work history data from the 1988 OPCS Retirement and Retirement Plans Survey is used, first to identify distinct patterns of older womens lifetime employment and relate these to socio-economic and marital status. Second, we analyse the receipt and amount of occupational and personal pensions for women over state pension age according to their pattern of lifetime employment. We show that older womens likelihood of receiving non-state pension income and the amount received were closely related to their employment pattern, especially whether their employment had been mainly full time or not. However, even older women with full time and mainly continuous employment, who represent an elite minority, were disadvantaged in non-state pension income compared with men. Womens full-time employment in mid-life had a disproportionate influence in improving likelihood of pension entitlement compared with earlier employment.

Towards Women's Independence: Pension Systems in Three Contrasting European Welfare States

The treatment of women as family dependants by state social systems in industrialized societies has become increasingly problematrc due to trends over the last 50 years such as the rise in cohabitation, divorce and lone parenthood and womens increased participation in the paid labour force.

Pension prospects of minority ethnic groups: inequalities by gender and ethnicity.

Minority ethnic groups have low income in later life from private pensions, partly due to shorter employment records in Britain since migration. Yet disadvantage and discrimination in the labour market, as well as differences in cultural norms concerning womens employment, may lead to persistence of ethnic variation in private pension acquisition. Little is known about the pension arrangements made by men and women in minority ethnic groups during the working life. This paper examines the extent of ethnic disadvantage in private pension scheme arrangements and analyses variation according to gender and specific ethnic group, using three years of the British Family Resources Survey, which provides information on over 97,000 adults aged 20-59, including over 5,700 from ethnic minorities. Both men and women in minority ethnic groups were less likely to have private pension coverage than their white counterparts but the extent of the difference was most marked for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Ethnicity interacted with gender, so that Blacks showed the least gender inequality in private pension arrangements, reflecting the relatively similar full-time employment rates of Black men and women. A minority ethnic disadvantage in private pension coverage, for both men and women, remained after taking account of age, marital and parental status, years of education, employment variables, class and income. The research suggests that minority ethnic groups - especially women - will be disproportionately dependent on means-tested benefits in later life, due to the combined effects of low private pension coverage and the policy of shifting pension provision towards the private sector.

UK Pension Reforms: Is Gender Still an Issue?

The UK Pensions Commission confirmed that womens domestic roles are crucial to their pension disadvantage. As a result, measures enacted in the Pensions Acts of 2007 and 2008 aimed to make state pensions more inclusive for those with periods out of the labour market for family caring, as well as encouraging more saving through private pensions by those with low to moderate earnings. Will these legislative changes, and subsequent reforms and plans, substantially reduce future gender inequality in UK pensions? In this article, we suggest the benefits to women will be patchy and overall less than expected. We first review the interaction of male-oriented pension schemes with the gendered division of caring labour and how this has changed for later cohorts of women. We then analyse, from a gender perspective, the pension reforms and proposals since 2007. Finally, we consider policy alternatives that would give women a better deal in pensions and conclude with an assessment of the mixed effects of pension reforms.

European pension privatisation: taking account of gender

Debate on pension privatisation in Europe has provided useful insights into the diversity of European pension systems in terms of ideological orientation, design features and reform paths followed. However, the gender dimension has often been neglected. Thus a recent analysis states that, depending on predominant social values, pension privatisation may be ‘consistent with the notion of collective responsibility for needs-satisfaction’ (Hyde et al., 2003: 189). Yet the unequal effects of privatisation on men and women are ignored. This article argues that, despite considerable variation among countries in the nature of their private pension schemes, the latter share a failure to incorporate allowances for periods of unpaid caring work over the lifecourse. Comparison of the needs-satisfying capacity of private and public pensions must take account of the situation of those who raise the next generation of producers and taxpayers.