Unpaid carers like me save the NHS £119 billion a year, says Laura Barnes of the We Care Campaign – yet our rewards include burnout, poverty, never seeing friends and being pushed out of jobs. In the second blog in our series for Carers Week in the UK, she says it’s time to value what the millions of carers do: and that starts with tailored services, financial support, flexible work and access to respite.
This Carers Week, we need to talk about racial justice
While the needs of all unpaid carers in Scotland are often overlooked, people from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds are being especially failed. Margaret Chiwanza introduces new research that reveals how they are being pushed into poverty and struggling in silence. Addressing that, she says, demands measures co-created with communities from targeted support payments to respite breaks to health checks.
The UK’s Chancellor is driving disabled people deeper into poverty: she must think again
Planned cuts to disability benefits will be devastating for people already struggling to pay their bills, with stroke survivors, amputees and people with serious mental health conditions among the groups targeted, says Samuel Thomas of anti-poverty charity Z2K.
Too many UK workers can’t afford to get ill – but new reforms to sick pay don’t go far enough
The Employment Rights Bill passing through the UK parliament is a once-in-a-generation chance to end the scandal of people being pushed into poverty simply because they get sick. But though it contains some welcome reforms, says Sylvie Pope at The Centre for Progressive Change, it risks leaving many people worse off or still facing hardship.
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.
Kenya’s affluent classes panic when domestic staff are away… so why can’t they acknowledge workers’ value with a decent wage?
During big holidays such as Christmas, social media buzzes with people struggling to cope without domestic workers. Clearly, the workers make a huge hidden contribution to households and the economy. Yet illegal exploitation of these vital women workers continues – and it’s urgent our government steps in to stop it, says Blandina Bobson.
Asian countries are making women and carers pay a painful price for austerity
A recent analysis by Oxfam ranked Asia as the worst global region for investment in public services. In our final blog for the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence, Myrah Nerine Butt spells out how such economic policy choices add up to structural violence against Asian women
Which governments really care about inequality? Not many, our new global index suggests
As Oxfam launches its latest index that rates countries’ commitment to reducing inequality, Anthony Kamande reflects on how poor policy choices impacted his own family in Kenya, points out how ordinary people have lost out amid the pandemic and inflation, and highlights a few governments showing the way forward
Putting the Furthest Behind First
By Jeffrey Maganya and Julie Kedroske COVID-19 is a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions with no signs of abating. 130 million more people experienced chronic hunger last year, and approximately 150 million people will be forced into extreme poverty by the end of 2021. The pandemic is exacerbating existing inequalities in gender, race, and wealth, which will significantly worsen without …