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PP-19 Financial insecurity, employment and end of life unpaid caregiving: an observational study

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Introduction Unpaid carers play a vital role in supporting people towards the end of life. However, end of life caregiving has significant negative impacts including financial burden and challenges maintaining paid employment. In spite of this, there is a lack of evidence internationally on poverty amongst end of life carers and how this extends into bereavement. Aim To examine the impact of end of life unpaid caring on financial and employment outcomes. Methods The study was a secondary analysis of observational data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). UKHLS collects health and social data annually from around 40,000 households in the UK. End of life unpaid carers were defined as participants > 16 years, who identified as a carer for someone (>16 years) in their household, where the care dependent died before the household’s next annual interview. Using a staggered difference in difference approach we explored the causal impact of caregiving on employment and poverty, including after the care recipients death. Results Using two measures of poverty, we found that the likelihood of unpaid carers falling into poverty significantly increased by between 7–19 percentage points after the death of the person being cared for. We also found a corresponding decrease in equivalised household income during this time. In addition, we found that unpaid carers were more likely to retire before reaching State Pension age, suggesting end of life carers are more likely to exit the labour market early. Conclusions Using representative population data, we found that end of life caring leads to increased odds of falling into poverty, and of taking early retirement. Impact The findings contribute to increased understanding of the needs of end of life family carers internationally and suggest a need for targeted interventions to address poverty and financial burden.

DOI: 10.1136/spcare-2025-mcrc.37

Authors: Clare Gardiner, Arthur Juet, Juliet Stone, Ed Webb

Institutions: University of Sheffield, University of Leeds, Loughborough University

Language: English

Topic: Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues

Subfield: Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDGs: No poverty, Good health and well-being, Decent work and economic growth, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: gold

OpenAlex ID: W4407284963

FWCI:

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