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

We provide the first detailed cohort analysis of the gender care gap that examines the association between caregiving provision, individual-level poverty, meso-level deprivation, and individual circumstances. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, we use (i) multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression to provide a detailed age cohort analysis of the probability of providing informal care by sex; and (ii) Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) to provide an intersectional examination of informal carers. Our 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 than 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. While overall caregiving prevalence is higher among individuals experiencing poverty and living in deprived areas, the gender care gap is larger among individuals above the poverty line and in non-deprived areas. Caregiving is primarily associated with the independent effects of cohort, gender, poverty, and meso-level deprivation, with limited evidence of multiplicative intersectional effects. 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.