Carers don’t want to be ‘saints’ or ‘angels’, says Ruth Hannan: they just want the same opportunities as everyone else. In a blog for Carers Week in the UK, she says we need to look way beyond sticking-plaster solutions such as respite breaks to radical measures that deliver real economic justice.
Across Britain, paid and unpaid care work remains undervalued and ignored: here are six ways governments can change that
Being a parent, unpaid carer or paid care worker in Wales, Scotland or England too often means being forced into hardship. Silvia Galandini and Claire Spoors introduce Oxfam’s new paper, which sets out how to break the link between care and poverty.
I’m an unpaid carer: I have no paid job – but I do have value
The value of unpaid care for disabled, ill and older people in the UK is equal to the entire budget of the NHS, yet it’s not even counted in our GDP. In a blog for Carers Week, Katy Styles explains why she founded the grassroots, volunteer-led We Care campaign to demand a new deal for the millions of invisible carers like her.
How can we tell a new story that boosts support for all care and carers?
The millions of paid and unpaid carers across the UK – including parents and guardians of children, social care and childcare workers, and unpaid carers for disabled, ill and elderly people – desperately need a new deal. Silvia Galandini, Anam Parvez (both Oxfam GB) and Nick Gadsby (The Answer) introduce a new toolkit that can help build public pressure for change, by constructing a fresh and compelling narrative about the value of all care.
It’s time for the UK to start caring about its carers
Millions of people provide essential paid and unpaid care such as support for children, disabled, ill and older people. Yet their huge contribution contrasts starkly with threadbare state support for their work. Anam Parvez and Silvia Galandini look at the high price carers, and especially women, pay for society undervaluing care – and the policies we need to fix our broken care infrastructure.
Levelling up: how wealth taxes can reduce inequalities
How far will this week’s budget go in ‘levelling up’ the UK in line with the government’s stated aims? Whilst much of the public debate has centred on what changes to taxing and spending the new Chancellor Rishi Sunak could make, there has been less analysis about how proposed measures could reduce economic inequality, which is surely a key hallmark …
Why London needs an Inequality Commissioner
OPINION: The divide between the richest and the poorest in the UK is growing, and the gap is seen most starkly in London. That’s why Oxfam is calling for an Inequality Commissioner to work with the Mayor of London on tackling poverty and inequality in the Capital, as Vicky Taylor explains. In London the wealth of the richest 10 percent …
Social security cuts risk widening UK regional inequalities
OPINION: Graham Whitham, Senior Policy Advisor on UK Poverty, warns that the latest government budget decisions will have a negative impact on already high levels of poverty and inequality in the UK. Sheffield Hallam University recently published research showing how cuts to social security spending announced since the 2015 General Election fall geographically across Great Britain. The research, co-funded by …
Social change for and by young women
What’s the most effective way of supporting young women to create the change they want to see in the world? FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, The Global Fund for Women, Oxfam and the Young Foundation are collaborating to respond to this question. Aly Marczynski explains how. The Roots Lab, a new social innovation lab, will test the most effective …
Oxfam Cymru’s Blueprint for Change
The Welsh Assembly election in May 2016 offers a significant opportunity for every political party to transparently commit themselves to create a more equal Wales, within a more equal world. Carys Mair Thomas, Head of Oxfam Cymru, highlights some of the key issues and policies contained within the report Even It Up: A Blueprint for Change, published today. Oxfam’s vision is …