Experiences of carers

This section presents a time series of answers to some of the questions from 2015-16 to 2023-24 around people’s caring responsibilities, and the experiences of people who provide unpaid care. It presents the results for 2023-34, and also presents the changes over time since the 2015-16 survey.

The figures presented in this section on caring responsibilities and the hours of care people provided in 2023-24 were not included in the HACE 2023-24 national report, so are being published here for the first time.

The other figures presented in this section are equivalent to the figures presented in the HACE national reports for years 2015-16 to 2023-24.

Caring responsibilities and hours of care

Survey respondents were asked whether they regularly provide care for others. And if so, how many hours of care a week they provide. They were asked to exclude caring they do as part of any paid employment, or formal volunteering, when answering this question.

Table 1: The proportion of people who provide unpaid care, and the number of hours of care they provide, are higher in 2023-24 than they were in 2015-16.

Weighted percentages of respondents who do and do not provide care, and the hours of care provided by those who do, 2015-16 to 2023-24.

Note: the table is rounded to the nearest whole number, and as a result some small but statistically significiant differences in percentages between years may not be explicitly visible in the table.

The majority of respondents in all years did not provide care to others. However, there was an increase in the total proportion of people providing care in 2023-24 (16%) compared to in 2015-16 (14%). The highest total proportion of people saying they provided care was seen in 2021-22, when 18% of people said they provided care.

The number of hours of care that respondents said they provided has also increased between 2015-16 and 2023-24, across nearly all numbers of hours of care. The only exception was for ‘up to 4 hours a week’, where the proportion was similar in 2015-16 and 2023-24.

The most consistent increase was seen between 2019-20 and 2021-22, when the proportion of people providing care increased across all numbers of hours of care. The largest increase was seen in people providing up to 4 hours of care, which increased from 4% in 2019-20 to 6% in 2021-22.

The change in the proportions of people providing care in 2023-24 compared to 2021-22 appears to depend on the amount of care being provided. The proportions of people providing up to 4 hours a week, and 5 to 19 hours a week, decreased between 2021-22 and 2023-24. The proportions providing 20 to 34 hours a week, and 35 to 49 hours a week, remained similar. But the number of people providing the most hours of care (50 or more hours a week) increased between 2021-22 and 2023-24, rising from 4% to 5% of all respondents.

In 2023-24, 5% of all respondents said they provided 50 or more hours of care per week. This is an increase compared to previous years analysed for this report, where the proportion was 4%.                                             

Impact of caring and support for carers

Survey respondents who said they provided care for others were asked whether they agreed with a number of statements about how they feel as a carer most of the time. As in the section about people’s experiences of receiving care, their responses were then classified into ‘positive’, ‘neutral’ and ‘negative’ responses.

The four statements analysed were:

‘I have a good balance between caring and other things in my life’

‘I have a say in services provided for the person(s) I look after’

‘Local services are well coordinated for the person(s) I look after’

‘I feel supported to continue caring’

The proportion of positive responses has generally been on a downward trend between 2015-16 and 2023-24. For three statements, the proportion of positive responses increased in 2023-24 compared to 2021-22. But in all cases, it remained lower than in 2015-16.

Positive agreement with these statements did not consistently decrease between 2017-18 and 2021-22. This is in contrast to positive agreement with statements relating to people’s experiences of receiving care, where positive agreement decreased for all statements between 2017-18 and 2021-22. This suggests that the experience of people receiving care changed between 2017-18 and 2021-22, but it may have changed in a different way for those providing care.

Although there has been an overall decrease in the level of positive responses to all four statements between 2015-16 and 2023-24, the statement ‘I have a good balance between caring and other things in my life’ had the most positive responses every year, ranging from 68% of respondents agreeing in 2015-16, to 62% in 2023-24.

The least positively rated statements in both 2015-16 and 2023-24 were ‘I feel supported to continue caring’ and ‘Local services are well coordinated for the person(s) I look after’. Only 31% of respondents agreed with these statements in 2023-24.

The statement with the largest decrease in positive responses between 2015-16 and 2023-24 was ‘Local services are well coordinated for the person(s) I look after’. In 2015-16, 41% of people agreed with this statement. But this had decreased to 31% in 2023-24 (a decrease of 10 percentage points).

Figure 9: Agreement with the statement ‘I have a good balance between caring and other things in my life’ has generally been decreasing over time.

Percentage of positive responses, 2015-16 to 2023-24, weighted percentages.

This statement had the highest agreement rating of all the statements, from 2015-16 to 2023-24, with 68% of respondents agreeing in 2015-16 and 62% agreeing in 2023-24. The proportion of positive responses was similar in 2021-22 and in 2023-24.

Figure 10: Agreement with the statement ‘I have a say in services provided for the person(s) I look after’ has generally been decreasing over time.

Percentage of positive responses, 2015-16 to 2023-24, weighted percentages.

The percentage of positive responses to this statement increased between 2021-22 (39%) and 2023-24 (42%). But it remained lower in 2023-24 (42%) than in 2015-16 (49%).

Figure 11: Agreement with the statement ‘Local services are well coordinated for the person(s) I look after’ has generally been decreasing over time.

Percentage of positive responses, 2015-16 to 2023-24, weighted percentages.

This statement had the largest decrease in positive responses between 2015-16 and 2023-24 of all the statements, from 41% in 2015-16 to 31% in 2023-24 (a decrease of 10 percentage points). However, as with the previous statement, the proportion of positive responses in 2023-24 (31%) had increased from 2021-22 (29%).

Figure 12: Agreement with the statement ‘I feel supported to continue caring’ has generally been decreasing over time.

Percentage of positive responses, 2015-16 to 2023-24, weighted percentages.

This statement and the previous (‘Local services are well coordinated for the person(s) I look after’) had the lowest positive responses, in both 2015-16 and 2023-24. However for this statement, as with the previous two statements, the proportion of positive responses increased between 2021-22 (30%) and 2023-24 (31%).