ABSTRACT
Caring, however, is not limited to parents who look after children. A large number of people also care for other dependants such as the elderly, disabled, sick or injured as well as grandparents looking after children. In the UK, some 11 per cent of the population are carers, only about a quarter of whom receive Carers Allowance (Desai 1998). At the EU level, meanwhile, some 6 per cent of EU citizens are engaged in unpaid informal care of sick or disabled adults and older people (in the same household or outside). On the whole, and reflecting the gender division of caring, these are usually women. Women are twice as likely as men to be caring for sick or disabled adults or older people on a daily basis (8 per cent compared with 4 per cent). The average number of hours spent on this care is 21 hours per week (European Commission 2000a). Moreover, just over one in five carers say that caring responsibilities prevent them from undertaking the amount of paid work that they would otherwise do and they are overwhelmingly women in the twenties and thirties (European Commission 2000a).
