Carers Census, Scotland, 2021-22

Cared For Person Information

The relationship between unpaid carers and the people they care for can be complex. Carers can provide care to more than one person and cared for people can receive care from more than one carer. Based on those de-duplicated records for which there is also information on the person being cared for; 27,930 carers provided care for one person and 4,750 carers provided care for more than one person in 2021-22.

The information in this section is based on the number of individual cared for people who received care and support from the unpaid carers discussed in the previous section. This includes 35,880 cared for people in 2021-22: 33,360 cared for people who received care from one carer and 2,510 who received care from more than one carer.

Age and Gender

In 2021-22, 22% of cared for people in the Carers Census were children. 28% were working age adults and 41% were older people aged 65+.

There was a fairly similar proportion of male (47%) and female (43%) cared for people overall for adult cared for people. However, as seen in Figure 8, this differed for children being cared for by an unpaid carer. In 2021-22, 62% of children being cared for were male compared to 31% who were female. This may be partly due to the most common client group of children cared for by an unpaid carer being Autism Spectrum Disorder, which is more commonly diagnosed in boys than in girls.

Main Client Group

A person’s main client group, such as mental health or physical disability, is the main reason a person requires care and support. Cared for people can have more than one client group but for the purposes of this analysis, only the main client group for each cared for person is considered.

In 2021-22, the most common main client group overall and for adult cared for people, apart from ‘Other’, was Dementia (17% of adult cared for people) followed by Physical Disability (10% of adult cared for people). However, the most common main client group for children receiving care from an unpaid carer was Autism Spectrum Disorder (37%).