Emily Kenway

Apr 5, 2024 | theguardian.com | Emily Kenway

For the first time, employees in Great Britain are going to have the right to . This change, which comes into effect tomorrow, will affect about 2.5 million people who are juggling employment with caring for long-term sick, disabled or elderly loved ones. I know first-hand why carer’s leave is sorely needed. For about four years, I balanced paid employment with caring for my mother, finally resigning from work altogether when her cancer became terminal.

Mar 26, 2024 | inews.co.uk | Emily Kenway

‘Both Garraway and I were carers for a relatively short time. For people who are carers for decades, the financial effects can be devastating’ (Photo: Andrew Matthews/Getty)What could be worse than a loved one falling ill? A loved one falling ill, and finding yourself in poverty because of it. As TV presenter Kate Garraway has highlighted, that’s the reality for many carers in the UK today. Her husband Derek Draper contracted Covid-19 in 2020.

Aug 30, 2023 | msmagazine.com | Emily Kenway

The idea that women shouldn’t be obligated to perform unpaid domestic labor, including care, is central to feminist campaigning. We want to determine the course of our own lives, to follow our passions and ambitions, just like men. But not all women have had the experience of being relegated to the home and barred from participating in the workforce. Working class women and women of color have had no choice but to work, either because of impoverishment or enslavement.

Jul 3, 2023 | znetwork.org | Emily Kenway

Today, people are living longer, but with more care needs. Meanwhile, we’re having fewer children. The care industry makes huge profits globally, yet unpaid caregiving still makes up the bulk of care provision in the UK. In fact, an estimated 12,000 new people are becoming unpaid caregivers each day. What’s more, the work of caregiving is not evenly distributed. Women remain the majority carers for our species around the world, both in the family realm and the paid care sector.

Jun 5, 2023 | bigissue.com | Emily Kenway

Katy is a casualty of our failure to protect and pay caregivers effectively. She used to be a teacher, a job she really enjoyed. When her father got terminal cancer, she went part-time to help her mum with him. Katy was lucky to be allowed to do that – we have the right to request flexible working, but not the right to receive it, so many caregivers would have quit at that stage. But then things got worse. Katy’s husband was diagnosed with a motor neurone disease.