Sharp rise in number of people leaving work to look after family

theguardian.com:

The number of people who aren’t working because of caring commitments is the highest since May 2020, with the last year marking a sustained increase in stay-at-home parents and carers after three decades of decline, new analysis from the Guardian reveals.

The figures are a stark warning that at a time of record employment vacancies and skills shortages, families are being “priced out and shut out of work”, said Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner.

Her comments come ahead of a speech to the Trades Union Congress conference on Wednesday in which she will pledge that Labour will transform working practices by giving workers the right to flexible working from their first day in a job.

Rayner told the Guardian that working women – who make up 84% of the 1.75 million people who have have given up work to care for family – had been “denied good quality, affordable childcare, proper parental leave and access to flexible working” during 12 years of Conservative governments.

Figures show that 43,000 women have dropped out of the workforce to look after family in the last year, a 3% increase on the previous year and part of a sustained shift after decades of decline, according to the most recent UK labour market figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

In June to August 2022, 27.6% of women were not working because of family commitments, compared to 7.4% of men. However, ONS statistics show that a growing number of men are also leaving the workforce because of family commitments – 36,000 men dropped out of the workforce in the last year, a 15% increase on the year before.

“It’s really challenging for families, and it’s even harder the lower down the food chain you are in terms of your income,” Rayner said. “If you’re