The role of young adults (18-25) in providing formal long term care in England

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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