Inequalities in Care, a research group within the Centre for Care, has fundamentally transformed how the UK measures, values, and addresses unpaid caregiving. While unpaid carers underpin the National Health Service and social care systems, a historic lack of robust quantitative evidence left their contributions invisible and the impact of providing care on personal financial penalties unquantified. Our project bridged this gap, combining methodological breakthroughs with accessible, policy-ready analysis that transformed perceptions of the economic and human scale of unpaid care.

Methodological Innovation

To overcome severe data limitations, we secured highly selective beta-test access to the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study alongside bespoke, commissioned Census 2021 tables. Bridging advanced econometrics and social policy, we developed a pioneering “doppelganger” approach (a two-stage individual synthetic control method) to provide state-of-the-art causal estimation of caregiving’s impact on income. For each new carer, we construct a counterfactual “synthetic non-carer” who is virtually identical in background and salient characteristics. This represents a step-change in the robustness of unpaid care research, resolving a long-standing impasse in social science methodology.

Transformative Impact

Our rigorous data transcended abstract academic debate, delivering definitive, actionable metrics that drove systemic change:

• The Care Economy: Through our Valuing Carers report series co-produced with Carers UK, we calculated the economic value of UK unpaid care at £184 billion annually. By demonstrating the sheer scale of systemic reliance on carers, this has become the definitive benchmark metric for national advocacy. 
• Legislative Action: Our evidence was directly cited during the passage of the Carers Leave Act in the House of Lords, successfully securing statutory leave rights for millions of working carers.
• Parliamentary Influence: Following our oral evidence to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee (March 2025), our findings heavily anchored the landmark “Adult Social Care: The Cost of Inaction” report, directly driving Early Day Motion 1434, signed by 41 Members of Parliament. Our research also subsequently informed oral evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee (March 2026) on the impact of care on caregivers’ financial wellbeing. 
• Exposing the Care Penalty: We provided robust causal evidence that unpaid carers face an average relative income gap of up to 45% (£162/month) after five years from the uptake of care responsibilities. Crucially, our intersectional mapping exposed a stark social polarisation: care is increasingly concentrated among those already facing systemic socioeconomic, geographic, and gendered disadvantage.

Public Engagement and Accessibility

Amplified by an extensive media campaign reaching an estimated 25 million people across BBC Breakfast, Sky News, and The Guardian, our project has helped elevate unpaid care to a core national priority. 

Crucially, it is also reshaping local delivery. We co-created an interactive Unpaid Care Dashboard with Carers UK, Integrated Care Boards, and experts with lived experience. Praised by practitioners as a “goldmine for service design”, this screen-reader-compatible tool translates complex statistical data into actionable insights, allowing local commissioners to map care intersectionally by ethnicity, religion, and health.

By marrying cutting-edge causal analysis with deep co-production, Inequalities in Care exemplifies the transformative power of modern social science research.

Knowledge Exchange Award – Understanding Unpaid Care Across the UK Project

The team was honoured with the University of Sheffield’s Knowledge Exchange Award for their outstanding partnership and impact in policy, public services, and law. The project they led, in collaboration with Carers UK and Carers NI, profoundly transformed the understanding of unpaid caregiving in the UK. Their work was instrumental in influencing the Carers Leave Bill and parliamentary debates, as well as achieving extensive media coverage across major networks, including BBC, Sky News, and ITV.

Embedded projects

Carer’s Allowance: Understanding complexity and inflexibility