Caring and COVID-19: hunger and mental wellbeing

Publication type

Report

Series Number

2020/01

Series

Care Matters Series

Authors

Publication date

June 15, 2020

Summary:

This report looks at use of foodbanks and experience of hunger in the households of unpaid carers providing care to someone living outside their own household in April 2020, during the full ‘lockdown’ stage of the official UK Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also reports evidence of changes in their mental wellbeing, analysing these by sex, age and employment status. There were an estimated 6,048,286 adults providing care to someone living outside their own household in the UK in 2020. These carers are an important ‘subset’ of all adult unpaid carers, estimated to number 10,991,440 people.

We used data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study [UKHLS], the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind. In April 2020, Understanding Society began a monthly COVID-19 survey of the socio-economic and health consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic, and a total of 17,450 people participated in the April 2020 wave. We used data from this survey and from the 2017-2019 wave of the regular Understanding Society survey. ‘Co-resident’ carers (people who care for a member of their own household with long-term illness or disability) could not be included in the analyses presented in this report, as they were not identifiable in the April 2020 survey.

Subjects

Links

- http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/sustainable-care-publications/
- http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/sustainable-care-publications/
- http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Caring-and-COVID-19_Hunger-and-mental-wellbeing-2.pdf

Paper download  

#526394

News

Latest findings, new research

Publications search

Search all research by subject and author

Podcasts

Researchers discuss their findings and what they mean for society

Projects

Background and context, methods and data, aims and outputs

Events

Conferences, seminars and workshops

Survey methodology

Specialist research, practice and study

Taking the long view

ISER's annual report

Themes

Key research themes and areas of interest