Flexible working

This is an open letter to acknowledge the essential and increasingly challenging role unpaid family carers are playing in the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter is written by members of the CAREWELL team, a HRB-funded project that aims to promote health and self-care behaviours among working family carers. Family carers provide care to family and friends in the community who need support due to old-age, disability and chronic illness.

The stress of caring for elderly relatives is being recognised, but more can be done

This article concerns new policy challenges relevant to companies in supporting working carers of older people to retain their jobs in Japan. Although long-term leave and flexible working measures have been reformed to address long-term in-home care, the results of new data analysis imply that the effectiveness of support measures differs according to the length of the period of care provided at home.

Informal caring for adults with disabilities is a source of unacceptable disadvantage in employment, finances, social inclusion, and health; here termed the ‘care penalty’. This penalty can be appropriately tackled through equality law, making care a ground for unlawful discrimination. Carers are not adequately protected from indirectly discriminatory disadvantages by other grounds such as sex and disability. Nor are carers adequately protected by carer-specific provisions such as the UK right to request flexible working.

Looks at the issues facing both employers and social worker/carers. Caring for adults.