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Excellent @ONS report today predicting an increase in demand for #socialcare over the next decades due to childlessness. Here’s a quick thread. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/ageing/articles/livinglonger/implicationsofchildlessnessamongtomorrowsolderpopulation#have-there-been-changes-in-the-proximity-and-willingness-of-children-to-provide-care-between-cohorts
Key point: there were two peaks to the postwar ‘baby boom’. And women born in the second peak in the 1960s are twice as likely to be childless as women born in the first, just after WW2.
(There was also a peak after WW1 but that’s another story).
(There was also a peak after WW1 but that’s another story).
Women born in the second peak (now in their mid-50s) are also predicted to live longer (75% born in 1964 should reach 80) and therefore have more need for informal (unpaid) or formal (paid) #socialcare, need for which rises with age (graph from here https://files.digital.nhs.uk/83/BB997F/HSE18-Social-Care-rep.pdf)
Normally, families take on a lot of informal care. And as people get older, adult children typically play a bigger role in care, overtaking the contribution of spouses/partners (who develop their own care needs and also die.) But of course fewer women will have children.
If people don’t have children to provide informal care, they use formal care instead, so demand should rise. (Must admit I’m surprised at the extent of this substitution and level of formal care - interesting to know if there’s a difference between self-funders v.state funded)
However the projected increase in formal care demand won’t be because children are unwilling or unable to provide informal care. Children of women born in both peaks have similar levels of contact and - more surprisingly - there’s little difference in proximity to parents)
This isn’t all written in stone, of course. Longer life isn’t a given ( #COVID19 reminds us of its fragility). Patterns of care could change. And half of spend is on working age adults, not older people. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-care-360/expenditure#spending-is-still-not-back-to-the-level-of-2010-11 But it does suggest increasing need for #socialcare
That has policy implications. On current trends, more people will end up paying for their care themselves (the means test keeps getting meaner). And we’re not at all sure where the workforce is coming from. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/whats-your-problem-social-care#meanstesting So long term reform is a must. Yet where is it?
A couple of quick PSs. The report also has interesting stuff about ethnicity and class differences in #socialcare. And a shout out to @AWOCUK who were banging on about this stuff long before today’s report.
