Life course causes and consequences of caring: how do work and family histories influence caring, and how does caring influence health and well-being?

照顾年迈或生病的朋友或亲戚对中老年人的资源的需求越来越大，特别是在预期寿命增加但健康寿命不变的情况下。在55岁的人中，48%的人表示有照顾年长亲戚的责任，21%的女性和14%的男性每周花在照顾孩子以外的亲戚身上的时间超过10个小时。这个项目将寻求更好地了解谁关心，以及关心对照顾者的健康和福祉的潜在影响。这个项目的目的是，首先调查成人生活中的角色和活动，如伴侣关系、为人父母和工作经历，如何在中年产生关爱的责任。其次，它将探讨家庭成员如何分担照顾和工作的责任。最后，该项目将评估护理对照顾者的健康和福祉的影响。该项目的各个方面还将调查男女关系是否有所不同，以及处于不利地位的人是否处于不同的地位。为了解决该项目的目标，我们将使用来自ESRC资助的两个来源的数据：国家儿童发展研究(NCDS)，这是一组1958年出生于英国的人，其中超过9100人得到了跟踪调查，直到55岁；以及英国家庭纵向研究(UKHLS)，自2009年以来，每年访问相同的人，居住在英国约4万个家庭中。我们将使用新的和复杂的统计技术来最大限度地利用可用的数据并解决我们项目的目标。该项目将有许多结果，我们的目标是接触到我们的五个主要受众：地方和国家政府、慈善部门、我们的学术同行、我们的护理人员用户社区和普通公众。我们将发表四篇同行评议的期刊文章，发表会议报告，并在研讨会和讲座上向所有观众展示我们的工作。我们将为非学术受众准备简报，概述我们的研究结果，发布新闻稿，并为相关的在线出版物撰写帖子。该项目有两个非学术合作伙伴参与了我们计划的发展，他们将在整个项目期间继续参与，并将有助于确保所进行的研究和产生的结果对其用户受众最有用。合作伙伴是萨姆·施瓦布，他是伦敦纽汉区成人社会护理的委托团队经理，他从那里的卫生部借调过来；苏·阿瑟，是独立年龄的政策和研究经理，这是一家慈善机构，专门向老年人及其照顾者提供关于获得福利和护理等问题的建议。我们还计划与Carers UK合作，这是我们一直在与之交谈的护理人员成员组织。该项目的主要目标之一是提供机会，加强研究团队的技能，特别是我们早期职业研究人员丽贝卡·莱西的技能。这个项目将帮助她发展她在纵向数据分析方法方面的技能，包括使用新的数据集。这也将使她第一次有机会成为助学金的联合研究员，这是发展学术生涯的关键一步，并将扩大她向学术和政策受众传播研究成果的经验。

Caring for ageing or sick friends or relatives is an increasing demand on the resources of those in middle and older age, particularly as life expectancy increases but years of healthy life does not. 48% of 55 year olds have reported having a caring responsibility for an older relative and 21% of women and 14% of men spend more than 10 hours a week caring for relatives other than their children. This project will seek to better understand who cares, and the potential impact of caring on the health and wellbeing of carers. This project aims to investigate, firstly, how roles and activities across adult life, such as partnership, parenthood and work histories, might lead to having a caring responsibility in mid-life. Secondly, it will explore how members of households share responsibility for caring and working. Finally, the project will assess the consequences of caregiving for health and well-being of carers. All aspects of the project will also investigate whether relationships differ for men and women, and for more and less advantaged people.To address the objectives of the project we will use data from two ESRC-funded sources: the National Child Development Study (NCDS), which is a cohort of people who were born in Great Britain in 1958, more than 9100 of whom have been followed up to age 55 years; and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), which has interviewed the same people, living in about 40,000 households across the UK, every year since 2009. We will use novel and complex statistical techniques to make the most of the data available and to address the aims of our project.The project will have a number of outputs, with which we aim to reach our five key audiences: local and national government, the charitable sector, our academic peers, our user community of carers, and the general public. We will produce four peer reviewed journal articles, give conference presentations, and present our work at seminars and lectures for all audiences. We will prepare briefing notes summarising our findings for non-academic audiences, press release our findings and write posts for relevant online publications.The project has two non-academic partners who have been involved in the development of our plans, will continue their involvement throughout the duration of the project, and will help to ensure that the research undertaken and findings produced are most useful to their user audiences. The partners are Sam Schwab, who is the Commissioning Team Manager for Adult Social Care at the London Borough of Newham, where he is seconded from Department of Health, and Sue Arthur, who is a Policy and Research Manager at Independent Age, a charity which specialises in offering advice to older people and their carers on issues such as accessing benefits and care. We also plan to collaborate with Carers UK, a membership organisation for carers with which we have been in conversation.One of the major objectives of the project is to provide opportunities to strengthen the skills of the research team, and in particular those of our early career researcher Rebecca Lacey. This project will help her to develop her skills in methods of analysis of longitudinal data, including using a new dataset. It will also provide her with her first opportunity to be co-investigator on a grant, a key step in developing an academic career, and will extend her experience of disseminating findings to both academic and policy audiences.