The role of young adults
(18-25) in providing formal
long term care in England
Dr Shereen Hussein
Professor Jill Manthorpe
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
The formal/paid
Long Term Care workforce
in England
Relatively old (median age 42 years)
Very gendered (women form 80%)
Relatively more diverse in terms of ethnicity
High prevalence of part time working
Low pay and relatively low status
Secondary position in the labour market
High vacancy and turnover rates
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Recruitment and
retention issues
71% of the workforce does ‘direct care work’ with the
highest vacancy and turnover rates
Particular issues with the private sector (constitutes
around 60% of care provision)
Very high turnover rate
Significantly lower pay rates (among all staff groups)
More people leave because ‘pay’ and ‘working
conditions’
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Current strategies
Tapping into ‘traditional’ pools
Migrants
New proposed immigration policies are likely to affect
this group
Tapping into ‘new pools’
Attracting young people
A number of government initiatives
Care First
Care Ambassador schemes
Social Care advertisements
Lowering age requirement for the new social work
degree
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
But, what do we know of the
younger group of workers?
The current research focuses on workers 18-25
Using the emerging National Minimum Data Set for
Social Care (NMDS-SC)
Coverage (by May 2009 around 400,000 individual
workers records- from 24,662 organisations)
Advantages (size, uniqueness, up-to-date)
Limitations (provided by employers- relatively limited
information)
Methods of analysis
Regression model
Time series analysis
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Findings: young
workers’ profile
18-25 year olds form 12% of the care workforce
85% are female
87% are white
87% are direct care workers
Under half (44%) are recruited from within the care
sector (including placements)
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
How different are they from
‘older’ workers?
logistic regression model
Significantly more likely to be women (OR=1.2;
p=0.002)
Significantly less likely to be from Black and Minority
Ethnic (BME) groups (OR=0.55; p<0.001)
Significantly more likely to have low (only entry
level) education (compared to level 2; OR=1.97,
p<0.001)
Significantly more likely to work in direct care jobs,
full time and in the private sector
They travel far shorter distances to work
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
In a nutshell
Younger workers (18-25) in the care sector are far less
diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity than older
workers.
They have lower educational attainment levels
They work very locally
They work more in the private sector, which is
characterised by lower pay and poorer working
conditions
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
What about trends in recruiting
younger workers?
Employers provided information on:
Current age of each worker
Date of starting employment
Year of joining the sector
From these we are able to calculate age at starting
the sector and employment
(after cleaning the data and removing outliers)
A time series analysis of levels of recruiting ‘younger’
and ‘older’ workers from 1980 to 2008
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Time series plot of the number of new entrants to the
social care sector by whether they are young (18-25) or
older (26-75) workers
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
What seems to be happening
over time?
From 1983 - 2005, a general trend of increased
employment in the sector
Reflecting the growing demand due to demographic factors
as well as the expansion of the care sector with a more
flexible borders with the health sector
Up until 2005 the numbers of new recruits from the older
age group continued to exceed that of younger age group
year on year.
Since 2005, new entrants of both age groups started to
decline.
Since 2005, the gap between new recruits of ages 26-75 is
narrowing towards the younger age group.
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Discussion of these
results
Social care sector appears to attract a particular group of
young adults:
Women
White
With lower qualifications
Many are already working within the sector
And are local to place of work
The perception of the gendered nature of care work may
be more extreme among younger people – it is ‘women’s
work’
Possibly links to educational (KS4 and GSCE) factors, as
poor white British pupils make the least progress (Strand
2008)
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Discussion of these
results 2
Since 2005; interesting trends
Why the dip in new recruits while demand continues to
increase
What is the recent closing gap mean in relation to the
effect on the overall profile of workers
Combined with recent changes in migrants profile  a
very dynamic workforce
But are we attracting the right people for the job?
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
Implications
How to attract young men?
Care work’s image
How to enhance care work position in the labour market
Society and family perceptions
Peer-effects
Addressing choices and identities
Crucial effect of wages and work conditions (particularly
within the care sector)
Opportunity to attract young workers from outside the
sector and direct from education
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010
References and
contacts
In-depth analysis of the care workforce, free to
download:
Social Care Workforce Periodical
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/interdisciplinary/scwru/
pubs/periodical/
Contacts:
shereen.hussein@kcl.ac.uk
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
8 to 11 Sep 2010