The Costs of Caring by Sally Baldwin

Author:Sally Baldwin [Baldwin, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, People With Disabilities, Health & Fitness, Children's Health
ISBN: 9781317361008
Google: LKlACwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-22T05:06:17+00:00

Differences in disposable incomes in real money terms are shown in Table 5.10. Here, as before, the effect of disablement on income varies with occupational status and with the age of the family's youngest child. When disability benefits are included in income non-manual families with a disabled child invariably have smaller incomes than similar control families, the gap widening as children grow up and reaching its maximum of £30.30 a week when the youngest child in the family is over eleven. The poorer, manual, families are better off when their youngest child is under five but progressively lose ground after that. By the time the youngest child is over eleven their disposable incomes are an average of £2.20 a week less than those of manual families in the control. To take account of increases in earnings and benefits between 1978 and 1984 the figures in Table 5.10 (like the other figures in this chapter) should, roughly, be doubled. On this basis the disposable incomes of non-manual families with disabled children whose children were all over eleven would have been in the region of £60 a week less than the incomes of similar families in the control in 1984.30

Deducting disability benefits from disposable incomes allows the impact of the child's condition on parental earnings at different stages of the family life-cycle to emerge. As Table 5.10 shows. income from sources other than disability benefits is invariably lower among the families with disabled children, and the difference increases markedly as children grow up.

The effectiveness of existing benefits in mitigating earnings loss depends, clearly, on the amount lost. For manual workers whose youngest child is under five an original earnings deficit of £6.40 a week was translated into an advantage of £5.90 a week over similar FES families. For non-manual families whose youngest child was over eleven an original earnings deficit of £48 a week was narrowed only to £30.30 (see Table 5.10).

As already observed, existing disability benefits are not in any case intended to compensate for parental earnings loss. That such wide discrepancies remain when they are included in income indicates the need for a benefit which would explicitly recognize

Table 5.10 Real disposable incomes

Families with a disabled child Mean Control group Mean

£ per week £ per week

Non-manual families

Youngest child under 5

Including disability benefits 96.3

Net of disability benefits 84.7 103.2

Youngest child 5-10

Including disability benefits 114.4

Net of disability benefits 100.0 119.5

Youngest child 11-16

Including disability benefits 102.7

Net of disability benefits 85.0 133.0

Manual families

Youngest child under 5

Including disability benefits 83.4

Net of disability benefits 71.1 77.5

Youngest child 5-10

Including disability benefits 92.1

Net of disability benefits 77.5 91.6

Youngest child 11-16

Including disability benefits 91.1

Net of disability benefits 76.0 93.3

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