Women in Scotland: the gendered impact of care on financial stability and well-being

It is not just anecdata — it goes far beyond Instagram reels and mommy blogs. The evidence is everywhere. Women are much likelier than men to engage in caregiving responsibilities at home, which leaves them with low incomes and at a risk of financial precarity.  

We are not yet a post-gender society. Caring roles are still sharply divided along gender lines. Whether by choice or necessity, women bear a disproportionate share of child-rearing and unpaid care work. The knife edge of this double whammy cuts through their financial security and overall well-being. The problem is as systemic as it is entrenched in conventional gender roles. We draw on some of our latest research to highlight the urgent need for policy interventions to tackle the challenges that disproportionately affect women.  

We have a two-adult breadwinner model where one parent goes out to work, while the other either engages in paid employment part-time or stays home fully to look after kids. Traditional gender norms dictate that the one going into the workforce is typically the father, while the mother takes a backseat from the labour market to focus on childcare. If she returns to the workforce after a gap, she often ends up in lower paying jobs. Since the onus of caregiving and childcare typically falls on women, women's ability to carve out a name for themselves in the professional sphere, earn and save for the future dwindles drastically.  

As a consequence, the economic disadvantage becomes even more pronounced and unarguable for single parents—particularly women—who are twice as likely as coupled parents to report that they struggle to provide essentials for their children (35 per cent versus 17 per cent). This is borne out in our recent research on child maintenance, done in partnership with One Parent Families Scotland and Fife Gingerbread.

Child maintenance can mitigate the financial difficulties single parents face. For kids who receive it, child maintenance lowers their poverty rate from around 40 per cent to 30 per cent, lifting about 140,000 children out of poverty across the UK.  

Not all separated families have a child maintenance arrangement. The Child Maintenance Service is there to help establish and enforce maintenance arrangements when parents need support to do so. However, our research found that the Child Maintenance Service is not working as well as it should, with separated parents finding the service difficult and costly to navigate.  As a result, the number of separated families in the UK who do not have an arrangement has grown from 600,000 in 2011/12 to 1 million in 2019/20. This exacerbates the financial challenges faced by single mothers. 

It is not just childcare responsibilities that disproportionately fall on women. At 59 per cent, women also make up the majority of unpaid carers in Scotland. Caregiving often results in financial insecurity and health problems, which make life difficult. Our latest research, done with Carers Scotland, advocating for a minimum income guarantee for unpaid carers found that across the Scottish population, 13.5 per cent of women provide unpaid care, compared to 10.1 per cent of men.   

Carers Scotland has found that women typically begin caregiving responsibilities 12 years earlier than men—at 45 years of age compared to 57 for men—some of whom having just about emerged from their childcare responsibilities. This leads once again to their lower earnings and pension contributions. With very little financial security, unsurprisingly, 28% unpaid carers across Scotland are living in poverty, with 1 in 12 in deep poverty. 

In the project's focus groups, carers, specifically female carers, said that they were financially dependent on others like a partner, parent, or the father of their children. This dependence rendered them feeling powerless and invisible, highlighting the urgent need for financial support mechanisms that help with greater autonomy.  

Unpaid carers are further worn down by the larger implications of poverty like housing, heating and transport. Often, they do not have the luxury of taking breaks from their caring responsibilities; however, the Scottish government does fund support for carers, precisely with the aim of giving carers a break like the Take a Break fund. But overall, the serious lack of accessible formal care services compounds not only their financial burdens but also their health challenges.

Those who care for their loved ones often experience significant physical and mental health consequences. Almost half (47 per cent) of carers with poor health, both male and female, are in poverty, as compared to around 40 per cent of the rest of the population. Physical injuries, lack of sleep, chronic pain, and declining mental health are also common experiences among carers. Even as these health challenges affect all carers, tackling the problems faced by them helps tackle gender inequalities.  

Women in Scotland deserve better. If this not enough of a reason to spur us on, it is worth noting that more than half of us (65 per cent) will take on unpaid caring roles at some point or the other in our lifetimes. Policymakers, employers and society as a whole need to make a concerted effort to address the problems inherent in unpaid caregiving that beat so many women down. This must be done urgently not only because neglecting women’s needs has a significant cost to the economy but also because it is a moral responsibility. It is not unreasonable to expect one half of the population to be treated on a par with the other.