International Women's day 2022

This International Women’s Day we are standing with women in the workplace and women who have taken on a caring role.

A carer is anyone who performs extra tasks to help or look after a friend or family member who, due to illness, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction cannot cope without their support. Caring is a separate issue to childcare.

Anyone can be a carer but due to the bias and stereotypes in our culture, it is more common for women to take on primary caring roles. For this reason, support for carers goes hand in hand with building equality for women.

Since carers also often have working lives, there are many women across Scotland in the difficult position of juggling paid work with their caring responsibilities. However, there are things that employers can do to support these members of staff, such as educating themselves on the issues carers face, developing policies and practices aimed at helping carers in the workplace and becoming recognised as a Carer Positive employer. This can be a great help to members of staff with caring responsibilities, as well as being beneficial to the organisation as a whole.

Of the UK population, three in five of us will become carers during our lifetime, and the number is set to rise as we live and work for longer. By building support for carers in the workplace, we can help create a more equal world for work everyone, including the women who are statistically more likely to have taken on caring roles.

#BreakTheBias and get involved with International Women’s Day 2022

And find out more about becoming a Carer Positive employer in Scotland today.