Work

Balancing care, work and retirement in an ageing society

By Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement

June 08, 2026

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8 to 14 June 2026 marks Carers Week, which we are proud to support at the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement.

The growing scale and intensity of caring in the UK

An estimated 5.8 million carers play an essential role in the UK today¹, providing care to family, friends and others, often stepping in where formal care is unavailable or unaffordable. About three-quarters of carers are under State Pension age², with a growing number aged 50 and over – many of whom are still working and approaching retirement.

Women remain more likely to provide care than men, and often at higher intensity. Caring as a whole has also become more intensive over time. Carers UK research shows that in 2025 over half of carers were providing more hours of care than a year previously, reflecting rising unmet need in social care and increasing complexity of conditions, particularly among older people³.

As more people face the need to work for longer to save for a financially secure retirement, carers are often left facing very real trade-offs between earning, saving and providing care. Without proper support and flexibility caring can disrupt careers, reduce people’s ability to save and widen the gender pension gap. It can also push people to access their pensions earlier, increasing the risk of lower incomes in later life.

Findings from the latest edition of Standard Life’s survey of 6,000 adults, Retirement Voice 2025⁴, show that people are already facing economic pressure, uncertainty and a shifting retirement landscape. Carers appear to be experiencing these pressures more acutely:

Over half of unpaid carers (52%) are worried about paying for social care costs for themselves or family members, compared to 33% of non-carers
20% of carers in work worry that caring will affect their ability to continue working until their preferred retirement age, compared with 8% of non-carers in work

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Caring affects the amount and type of work people can do

Working-age unpaid carers are less likely to be in paid employment – around 59% are in paid employment, compared with 67% of working-age adults who are not carers⁵. Recent research for the Pensions Commission shows that by the age of 55 to 65, only around three in ten carers have had a sustained history of full-time work, compared with around four in ten of those who have never had caring responsibilities⁶.

Carers UK found that many more carers work fewer hours or in lower-paid jobs because of caring responsibilities⁷. Almost half of working carers are considering reducing their hours⁸.

Many people may be underestimating the likelihood of becoming a carer in the course of their working life. Our previous research has found that only one in four people (27%) think they will be (or will have been) a carer by the time they are 67. This is despite the fact that in reality half of people become a carer by the time they are 50⁹.

Caring responsibilities impact carers’ pension savings

Unpaid caring has a direct and lasting effect on pension saving, increasing the risk of poverty and financial insecurity in later life – especially for women. Caring often peaks in people’s 50s and early 60s¹⁰, key years for people’s saving and decision making. Because caring can reduce both earnings and pension contributions, the effects are compounded and often hard to reverse. Caring in later life can also lead to drawing down pension savings early, which could risk an inadequate income later in retirement. Evidence shows that:

Interrupted work histories and lower earnings levels help explain why 47% of carers aged 60-65 have no private pension savings, compared with much lower levels among non-carers¹¹
Caring also increases the likelihood of accessing a pension early: 6% of adults aged 55+ who had accessed a private pension before fully retiring from paid work said they did so to ‘care for family and friends¹²
Our own research found among those aged 60-65 with pension savings, carers have 17% less pension wealth than the UK average, a shortfall of around £37,000¹³
Carers are more reliant on the State Pension and other benefits in retirement than non-carers because fewer receive any private pension income and, among those who do, incomes are lower¹⁴

Taking time out of work to care reduces long-term pension wealth, partly as a result of lower pension contributions, and partly as a result of forgone investment growth. As an illustration:

Around £3,000 less in a pension pot if the last year pre-State Pension age is spent working part-time (three days a week) because of caring
Or around £39,000 less in a pension pot if the last 10 years pre-State Pension age are spent working only three days a week instead of five because of caring¹⁵

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The ‘tipping point’ – rising financial strain on carers

While caring delivers enormous social value, it often comes at a direct financial cost to carers themselves.

Our research with Carers UK¹⁶shows that:

49% of carers have cut back on essentials such as food, heating and transport, rising to 56% of those caring for 50+ hours weekly
Almost three-quarters worry about their future financial security, including what happens when caring ends
Among working carers, 35% have reduced their hours and 21% have moved into lower-paid roles to manage caring responsibilities

This financial strain builds over time. Reduced earnings, interrupted careers and lower pension contributions mean caring can permanently damage financial trajectories. For carers in their 50s and early 60s, the consequences are especially severe, eroding both short-term resilience and retirement outcomes.

This leads to a ‘tipping point’ when carers are forced to juggle the competing demands of maintaining income, sustaining their own health, and continuing to provide care. Too often, carers absorb this shock themselves, getting by until they become too unwell or leave paid work altogether.

The economic impact of caring

We have recently supported analysis by Cambridge Econometrics estimating some of the economic costs of unpaid caring in the UK¹⁷.

In 2023, an estimated 2.7 million unpaid carers were not in paid work across all working age groups. We know some unpaid carers would like to do paid work if they could find a job flexible enough to balance work and their caring responsibilities. To estimate the economic cost of unpaid caring, Cambridge Econometrics assumed around 500,000 non-working unpaid carers aged 16-64 could be supported to move into paid work. The direct opportunity cost of these carers being locked out of employment could be substantial:

Up to £17.5 billion per year in lost earnings, reduced tax receipts and higher welfare spending¹⁸
The indirect cost could be up to £8.2 billion in lost gross value added (GVA), plus up to a further £510 million in foregone VAT – taking the total to up to £26.1 billion, or around 0.6% of gross domestic product (GDP)
If all those out of work were able to work, these costs could be as high as £51 billion a year
These estimates do not include the cost of forgone labour from people working fewer hours or in lower-paid jobs because of caring responsibilities: for example, in a recent Carers UK survey, 21% of carers said they had taken a lower-paid or more junior job to fit caring around work¹⁹
The estimates also exclude potential productivity losses from carers working while unwell or under excessive strain
These costs are not evenly distributed. Women aged 25-64 are most likely to leave work because of caring, while men in this age group face the highest per-person opportunity costs when caring disrupts employment

This suggests that supporting carers is as much a driver for economic growth as a social imperative.

What needs to change

The evidence suggests the UK relies heavily on unpaid carers – but does not consistently support them to balance work, finances and retirement planning. There are implications for both policy makers and employers.

1. Supporting carers to stay in and return to work

Cambridge Econometrics’ modelling shows that even partial re-engagement with employment among carers closest to the labour market would deliver significant fiscal and economic returns. Employers could do more to support carers and retain their skills and experience.

2. Strengthening financial resilience

Carers UK’s research shows that current financial support is insufficient to prevent hardship. Addressing this is essential to avoid long-term scarring to incomes and pensions. Government should support measures that help people stay in work.

3. Aligning caring with an ageing workforce

As the Second Pensions Commission’s interim report suggests, policies on extended working lives and pensions must recognise caring as a structural life risk that is likely to worsen as the population ages, rather than a temporary or marginal issue.

In order to improve outcomes for carers, the UK government should:

Use the opportunity presented by the review of employment rights for carers to legislate to introduce a new statutory right to five days of paid Carer’s Leave per year by the end of this Parliament. This would build on the current right to unpaid leave secured through the Carer’s Leave Act 2023.
Work with employers to maximise carers’ take-up of the existing right to unpaid Carer’s Leave and continue to promote good practice with regards to supporting carers in employment. This might include more guidance on job design, different forms of flexible working, and signposting to specific support.
Provide support to unpaid carers and those with health conditions to help them remain in or return to paid work, using the momentum of the Keep Britain Working review and the relationships with employers.
Ensure that the new Make Work Pay initiatives to support return to work identify unpaid carers, build in tailored support and advice for them and measure outcomes on carers’ journeys to allow services to continue to learn, build and improve support for unpaid carers.

To support unpaid carers in the workplace, employers should:

Introduce at least five days of paid Carer’s Leave
Continually raise awareness of employees’ rights under the Carer’s Leave Act and wider flexible working rights within the workplace
Provide training for line managers on how to support carers in the workplace
Strengthen workplace culture around unpaid carers through internal support mechanisms such as a carer champion, carers network and carers passports

Conclusion: supporting unpaid carers benefits the economy, employers and society

Carers Week 2026 comes at a critical moment. Intensifying care needs, delayed retirement, the rising State Pension age and economic uncertainty are converging.

The evidence suggests that supporting carers earlier, better and more systematically is both socially necessary and economically rational. Failure to act will deepen inequalities, reduce labour supply and store up avoidable costs across health, welfare and pensions.