SWBG blog

Voices from the Front Line - researching social care workers' experiences in Scotland

In this blog SWBG Training and Participation Lead, Heather Williams, reflects on our recently published research Voices from the Front Line: Social care workers in Scotland.

That the Social Care sector in Scotland is in crisis is not news. From recruitment to staff retention, people are unable to receive the care packages they need, placing additional pressure on unpaid carers. This all disproportionately impacts women. 

What is less widely recognised however is if and how the sector’s terms and conditions undermine the Scottish Government’s commitments to fair work, tackling child poverty, and driving economic growth. This research aimed to fill this gap. 

The Scottish Women’s Budget Group (SWBG) engaged with 50 paid carers through this project, who were clear about the satisfaction they gained from their work—especially from seeing the positive difference it made in the lives of those they cared for. Yet, the project’s participants also told us about how they struggled to live on the wages they received and how their terms and conditions affected them negatively, all of which is at odds with the Scottish Government’s Fair Work agenda. 

In the last few days, we’ve yet again heard the idea that care work is low skilled work being communicated by the UK Government.  Seeing care work as unskilled labour is in part due to the skills required often being overlooked or assumed to be innate qualities of the disproportionally female workforce.  

The women we spoke with highlighted the high levels of autonomy and responsibility that those working in the sector often have. Those working in the sector are increasingly working with people with complex health and care needs all of which adds to the skills needed to work in this field. 

‘Often when you hear people talk about people who work in social care, you hear the words, oh, it’s a vocation, you know, so it’s that thing about. Because you love it, you’ll do it for less’    

The women we spoke with were clear about this and stressed that if they did similar work in the NHS they would get better pay and conditions.  

‘Having the living wage doesn’t make much difference due to the cost of living being high. I regularly don’t have enough money to do me through the month.’ 

Based on 24/25 pay awards, an NHS worker at Band 3 was paid £26,869-£28,9989 compared to £24,570 for a social care worker on Real Living Wage. As a result, social care workers are being forced to adjust their household budgets to make ends meet. The disparity in funding, which contributes to low pay and conditions, meant that 50% of those we engaged with struggled to afford their energy costs, and 30% had to adjust other areas of household spending to cover these. Can Scotland realistically grow its economy when a significant portion of its workforce has so little disposable income to spend in their communities? Participants confirmed what we already know. Our own modelling showed that putting more money into social care—especially by raising wages—pays off for the local economy, helping to create new jobs and boost spending. 

What did the research show about the sector’s working conditions and its links with child poverty? Having paid work is not always enough to escape the risk of poverty, and this is definitely the case for those working in the adult social care sector. 

In Scotland 70% of children in relative poverty after housing costs were living in working households. The TUC found that across the UK one in four children with care worker parents are growing up in poverty. As tackling child poverty is a key priority for the Scottish Government, addressing low wages in the social care sector should be a lever used to address this problem.  

But low pay in the sector doesn’t just impact on the women we spoke with in the here and now, it also has long term consequences for them. Only 60% of those who participated in this research were able to pay into a pension. Women told us they just didn’t have the disposable income to make pension contributions and while they worried about what retirement would look like, surviving now took precedence. 

There is more: the project’s participants told us that the physical nature of the role took its toll on their bodies. Even with equipment to help with lifting and moving, many women had bad backs or other issues, which impacted on their everyday lives. Yet musculoskeletal injuries within the care sector are not recognised as industrial injuries in the same way as carpal tunnel syndrome or occupational deafness are. As a result, many women are being ‘retired into poverty’ because they are no longer fit for work before they reach state pension age. 

The report raises the voices of women on the front line of social care, shining a light on the far-reaching impact of working conditions. Improving these conditions isn’t just fair, it’s key to helping the Scottish Government achieve its priorities and tackle the long-standing undervaluation of ‘women’s work’. 

Read the full research report - Voices from the Front Line: Social care workers in Scotland.