I’m an unpaid carer: I have no paid job – but I do have value

Katy Styles Influencing, Poverty in the UK, Women's Economic Empowerment

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?

Silvia Galandini Influencing, Poverty in the UK, Research

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

Anam Parvez Gender, Poverty in the UK, Women's Economic Empowerment

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.

Migrant women are raising their voices against an unjust childcare system: it’s time to listen to them

Veronica Deutsch Gender, Influencing, Women's Economic Empowerment

Whether depriving nannies of labour rights, or locking mothers out of child benefit, the UK can be a callous place for migrant childcare workers and parents, says Veronica Deutsch. And the battle to reform the childcare system starts by listening to the women affected.

Poverty and income inequality are inseparable problems

Philomena Cullen Inequality, Research

New research from Oxfam and researchers at the London School of Economics shows a clear link between growing income inequality and income poverty in the UK. Philomena Cullen explores what this means for anti-poverty efforts both nationally and globally. Oxfam’s core purpose is the ending of poverty and suffering. Yet, in recent years, we’ve grown increasingly alarmed by extreme and …

Employment charters: a potential tool to challenge inequality?

Emily Ball Inequality

Emily Ball and Ceri Hughes explain employment charters; what they can achieve, their limits and Oxfam GB’s hopes for an employment charter for Greater Manchester. More than half (7.4 million) of the people in poverty in the UK are in working families. Concerted action is required if we are to take on this long-term trend but one way to begin …

Future skills: Helping women get along in the job market

Caroline Tosal-Suprun Gender, Participation and Leadership, Women's Economic Empowerment

Caroline Tosal-Suprun reflects on a recent workshop, co-developed by Oxfam and the Co-operative Bank, as part of our work to improve women’s access to work in the UK.  uture Skills is an Oxfam project tackling poverty in the UK. It places women from marginalised communities as volunteers in one of our high street shops for six months. Through the programme, …