Ippr speech – ‘sandwich generation’ 7 December 2009
Sam Smethers, Chief Executive
Grandparents Plus
Understanding grandparenting – a lifestage approach
For those of you who don’t know our organisation – Grandparents Plus is a small national charity which champions the role of grandparents and the wider family in children’s lives.
I also used to work for the old Equal Opportunities Commission – the sex equality body – so I come at this agenda with an equality hat on and am particularly pleased that in her role as Minister for Women and Equality Harriet is taking such an interest in this issue.
It is the undervaluing of the caring role that largely women provide that is behind the fact that we have ignored the grandparental contribution for so long.
Who are the sandwich generation carers?
We need to get behind the headline ‘truths’ of our ageing society. Yes women live longer than men and yes we are getting older. Yes we are having children later in life. Yes this means that our families become more ‘beanpole’ like in structure. But there are significant class differences in this experience. This tells us a bit more about who our sandwich generation carers tend to be. And socio-economic status is still a major driver if not the biggest driver in our society.
Firstly – people assume that there are 2 slices in the sandwich (parents caring for children and older relatives). But for grandparents often there may be 3 – children living at home, grandchildren and older relatives too. Grandparents aren’t the oldest generation anymore and with step families, re-partnering, our family structures tend to be much more complex than our traditional image of family allows for.
I want you to think for a minute about how old you would be if you were 16 when you had your daughter and she then had a baby herself at the age of 15. Or if you were 22 and she has her baby when she is 27? I was 21 when I had my first child and she is 18 now so chances are I will be a grandparent before I am 60.
Working class women are 4 times more likely than middle class women to become a grandparent before they are 50 (20% vs 5%) and twice as likely before they are 60.
4 generation families tend to be poorer and the children in them more likely to be living in poverty.
Becoming a grandparent in your 30s or 40s is not that unusual. We need to adopt a lifestage approach to ageing as that lifestage can hit you at very different times.
The grandparental childcare contribution
1 in 3 families rely on grandparents for childcare. Parents tell us they are more likely to use grandparental childcare because of the recession. A recent research study by an insurance company valued that contribution at £5Billion.
We also know that low income families are particularly likely to rely on grandparents for childcare (eg half of single parents depend on them). They tend to live close by, the parents tend to be in jobs with anti-social hours (two parents doing shift work or a single parent combining several mini-jobs cleaning, working in a pub etc) so formal childcare doesn’t meet their needs. And they are on low incomes, so even with 80% of childcare costs covered through tax credits, 20% is still too much to find. it’s also form of childcare they trust – that is the first reason parents give for asking grandparents to provide childcare.
We have found that it is particularly working age women on low incomes who are providing most of the grandparental childcare. They often support the children financially while they are in their care and they take a financial hit in terms of earning sacrificed and pension contributions lost while doing so.
For this reason we were particularly pleased to see the announcement of the NI credit, which will protect the pension pots of grandparents providing childcare, but that’s not till 2011 and it doesn’t help them at the time.
But there are some further, practical things we think government should do.
We want to see grandparents to be paid for childcare through the tax credit system. Why? Because it is mostly low income families who depend on grandparents for childcare and the tax credit system is supposed to help those families. Millennium Cohort Study found that 64% of professional/managerial working mums used formal childcare for their under 3s compared to 6% of unskilled working mums. We are not arguing with the benefits of good quality formal childcare for pre-school children, but we have to be honest with ourselves about the limitations of formal childcare in terms of reaching the lowest income families and ask how we are going to help them.
We also want to see children’s centres targeting grandparent carers – we won’t close the attainment gap between w/c and m/c kids unless we engage informal carers.
We have to enable working age grandparents to combine work and care by extending flexible working to older workers (and preferably to all). We want to see a transformation of workplace culture so that flexibility becomes the norm not the exception.
Finally – we have called for 2 weeks’ granny leave in a child’s first year. This is the time when parents’ relationships come under pressure and grandparents are particularly likely to be asked to help out.
I want to end by sharing with you a couple of real life stories of grandparents.
Firstly – Barbarais 57 and has been providing childcare for her two grandsons aged 5 and 3 for the past 3 years. She used to work part-time in a shop but gave up work when her son had his first baby so that she could provide childcare. She has the boys from 8 in the morning, takes them to school on the bus, picks them up from school and then gives them tea. Their mum/dad pick them up at 6 sometimes later. If the boys are ill she will still look after them – sometimes she goes to their house. She also has them during the holidays. She plans her own holidays around her childcare commitments and often goes without.
She loves her grandchildren and her son, she enjoys having them but she finds that sometimes she wishes she had more time for herself. Barbara’s own mum is 81 and lives alone but while the boys are at school Barbara goes round to see her most days as she doesn’t live far away. Increasingly she finds that she is doing more to help her mum and expects that this will continue in the years ahead.
Barbara doesn’t qualify for any childcare payment and won’t take money from her son as she knows they are struggling. She doesn’t qualify for carers’ allowance as she’s not caring for 35 hours per week or more. She will get the new grandparent NI credit but this won’t cover the years she has already spent caring. She is married to Bob and so relies on his income and pension record to support her.
Anne is 36 and has a teenage daughter, Rebecca, who recently had a baby herself. Rebecca lives with Anne and she wants to help her care for the baby. She also wants her daughter to complete her education so she gives up her job to look after the baby while Rebecca completes her A levels and goes on to do a HE qualification. She provides emotional and practical support for Rebecca at a critical time. The baby’s father stays in touch but they don’t want to live together and Rebecca isn’t sure she wants to stay in the relationship.
Anne is recently divorced and so doesn’t have a partner’s income to rely on. She is now claiming benefits herself and isn’t sure when she will be able to get back in to work. Her first thought is for Rebecca and her future.
If Anne lived in Germany or Portugal she would be entitled to paid leave to care for her teenage daughter’s baby.
Finally, Pat is 41 and her daughter, Louise is a heroin addict and so is her partner. They have a son, Kyle aged 6 who spends some weeks at home, some weeks with his gran. He leads a chaotic life and Pat worries about him. Eventually, Louise overdoses on heroin and dies. Her partner is unable to care for Kyle so social workers phone Pat and ask if she will take her grandson or he will go in to care. She doesn’t hesitate although she is grieving for her daughter. She’s in a daze and doesn’t ask any of the right questions. Days and weeks pass and the social worker doesn’t come back. Pat give up work because she can’t cope with juggling it all. She is left to work out for herself what support or benefits she might be able to claim. She is also left to explain to Kyle what has happened to his mum and has to manage contact arrangements with his dad who continues to abuse drugs and also has to manage Kyle’s increasingly aggressive behaviour. She goes to the GP for anti-depressants but doesn’t go back to social workers for help because she is frightened that her grandson will be taken into care.
There are 200,000 grandparents raising grandchildren. 4 out of 5 are working age and 6 out of 10 have either given up work or reduced their paid working hours to do so. 1 in 4 are also caring for an older or disabled relative. They are keeping 300,000 children out of the care system – saving the tax payer £12billion.
Being a grandparent isn’t always a cosy, easy experience and we need to recognise and respond to that.
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