Anna’s Blog – Women in Social Care

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is ‘Give to Gain’. It focusses on how we can promote gender equality by encouraging generosity and collaboration. The campaign is a striking reminder of how women already give so much to the world through their work, advocacy, education, training and mentorship. Yet, as we celebrate International Women’s Day, we’re reminded of the current state of UK social care, a sector which predominantly relies on low paid and unpaid women’s labour.

Baroness Louise Casey, Chair of the Independent Commission on Adult Social Care, has opened an independent inquiry which is due to be reviewed by the Prime Minister in 2028. Already, the Casey Commission has found a “care system which relies on the exploitation of its workers”.

It’s unfortunately no surprise to those in social care that the sector often faces underfunding, a lack of resources, with frontline workers being undervalued for their skills and labour. These issues run far deeper when we look at the demographics making up the sector. One in four women in the UK work in social care and nearly 60% of unpaid carers are women. A staggering 1 in 5 women aged 55 to 59 are providing unpaid care. According to Carers UK, citing research in Scotland, women are twice as likely than men to give up paid work to care for others.

As a social care provider, we are proud of the massive contribution of women to both paid and unpaid care. We are committed to empowering our female employees and enabling them to progress. This includes upskilling and making development training programmes available for all staff. Our gender pay gap is slightly in favour of women, reflecting the number of women in our senior leadership roles. Our anti-discriminatory policies protect women’s rights and our employment practices enable women with caring responsibilities to stay in paid employment. For example, we offer up to five days paid carer’s leave in addition to annual leave.

Baroness Casey’s commission is welcomed but throughout her review there must be a clear acknowledgement that gender has always contributed to the underfunding of social care and the underappreciation of female carers. Reflecting on International Woman’s Day in the literal sense, we must ‘give’ proper funding to the social care sector in order to ‘gain’ a more just and equal society.