The gendered landscape of informal caregiving: cohort effects and socioeconomic inequalities in England

We provide the first detailed cohort analysis to investigate both the effect of individual-level poverty and meso-level deprivation on the gender care gap, highlighting how individual circumstances and place shape caregiving provision. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N =40,324), we apply two complementary approaches: (i) multilevel mixed-effect logistic regression to provide detailed age cohort analysis of the probability of providing informal care by sex, accounting for the nested data structure; and (ii) Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) to examine whether the factors that shape the probability of providing care have additive or multiplicative reinforcing effects.

Results reveal a clear age pattern in caregiving, peaking between ages 60–70 before declining, with earlier-born cohorts showing higher caregiving likelihood at the same ages compared to later-born cohorts. The gender care gap is most pronounced among middle-born cohorts (1969–1978, 1959–1968, and 1949–1958), particularly between ages 50 and 60. Both poverty and geographic deprivation significantly shape gendered caregiving inequalities: the gender care gap is wider among individuals above the poverty line and in deprived local authority districts. The caregiving likelihood is primarily driven by the independent effects of cohort, gender, poverty, and meso-level deprivation, with limited evidence of multiplicative intersectional effects.

These findings demonstrate that the gender care gap is not a uniform phenomenon. Policy attempts to address the gender care gap need to be mindful of these variations, not least because they potentially elucidate the potential sources of gender inequalities in care.