How do we solve the UK’s care crisis? In recent weeks this question has returned to the top of the political agenda. Given the discourse surrounding the government’s proposed shakeup of social care funding, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the problem is lack of state care – and therefore that the solution is more of it. Improving state services is certainly necessary to support the 6.5 million people who are informal caregivers in the UK today, but the absence of sufficient alternatives is not the sole reason that most care is performed by family members. Instead, we need to pay attention to the underlying assumptions being made about care so that we can create a better informed and more effective policy approach.
Women are the default caregivers of our species. Frustration with this assigned role fuelled the 1970s women’s liberation movement, with women across the world calling for recognition of the value of domestic labour. Manifestos and pamphlets of the time advocated for the socialisation of domestic responsibilities so that women could have a choice about their lives, instead of being shackled to the home. It is obviously unacceptable to assign a role in life to someone based on their gender, but we mustn’t allow the question of who performs care, and the problems of sexism therein, to obscure why we perform care. Imagine this: tomorrow you get a call informing you that a parent is terminally ill. What do you do? You could call the council and, depending on funding, have carers visit them over the coming weeks. But do you want to continue going to work while strangers spend the last weeks of your loved one’s life with them? Maybe you could quit your job, but when?
Terminal diagnoses are a gamble – they might live six months or six weeks. Too much policymaking is done devoid of lived experience. When a real caring situation collides with your life, you may want to perform that care, at least some of the time.
