Empowering unpaid carers

For the vast majority of people, care begins at home with their families. Many people wish to play a role in caring for their friends and family, and we recognise that for some this can be a significant commitment. The 2011 Census reported that almost 1 in 4 (23% or 1.3 million) of those providing unpaid care were caring for over 50 hours a week. We expect this figure to be higher when the new 2021 Census figures are released. A variety of estimates also exist for the value of unpaid care provision, including the Office for National Statistics who estimate that the gross value added of unpaid care in the UK was 59.5 billion in 2016 (ONS 2016).

Caring is not always easy or straightforward. There is a wide variety in caring circumstances, experiences and needs among carers. Caring can be rewarding, but it can also have negative impacts on the carer, such as making it difficult to balance paid employment with care, or preventing people from socialising or undertaking other activities as much as they would like.

Just over 1 in 10 (11%) adult unpaid carers report not being in employment due to their caring responsibilities, and this figure rises to 36% among those providing 20 or more hours of care a week. Almost half (45%) of unpaid carers report caring having an impact on their personal and social lives, and 52% report that providing care has an impact on their health, including physical strain, stress or exacerbating an existing condition.

Imagine you are a researcher who has been asked to explore the topic of unpaid caring for friends and family in the UK, using a phenomenological methodology and a Critical Discursive Psychology methodology. Question: A discursive psychologist researching this topic would be looking at the interpretative repertoires, subject positions and ideological dilemmas in the data. State and justify a suitable data collection method and research question for this project, and briefly discuss the strengths and limitations of using the discursive approach to research this topic