Articles

More Male Care Workers Needed

04/09/2015

According to recent statistics across England, Women make up 84% of health carers as opposed to a mere 16% for men. These findings prompted Prof. Martin Green, the Chief executive of Care England to call for more male care workers to help make up the shortfall in adult social care roles.

One method of encouraging male applications might be through education and by moving away from traditional gendered stereotypical notions of care being a female role. With projected figures predicting a shortfall of 718,000 care workers by 2025, the consensus in some circles is that women are doing enough and that more must be done to encourage male recruits to fill the positions.

According to the Guardian “the Future Care Workforce report from Anchor and the International Longevity Centre-UK found that, to meet the care needs of the soaring numbers of older people, a staggering 40% of the projected increase in England's working age population will need to enter the care profession by 2025.”

On the basis of these figures, women alone simply cannot fill the requirements. The health profession cannot afford to be picky with regard to its chosen demographic. It needs to reach out to older people, the unemployed, men, and so on.

Cultural attitudes need to be addressed in order to remove the stigma associated with men being in care roles. A survey conducted by Anchor found that 25% of 16-25 year males would never consider going into a care role. One third of this number said that it is due to a lack of knowledge about what the role entails. Tellingly, 23% of young people said that they would consider a career in care if there was a more positive public perception of the job.

With 900,000 young people currently unemployed, the healthcare sector also has another largely untapped demographic to draw upon to meet demands. An added bonus for providers is that due to legislation passed in line with the 2015 budget, they will be able to provide a lower minimum wage for those aged 16 to 20 than for those over 21.

Prof Green insisted that "entrenched societal perceptions" stop men from considering care work. The problem is people always see caring roles as being female roles. We need to make society understand that everyone has the potential to be a carer.”

"They could make sure that every school understands that care career paths are for men as well as women, they could portray more men in government information on care roles, and they should put more emphasis on reaching out to men when they advertise care role vacancies.

"This is about every arm of government working to change the perception that care roles are just for women.

"More importantly, it's about every citizen examining their own pre-conceived notions of who delivers care." He said.

For some men, sensitive issues such as being bathed and dressed mean that they would prefer to be taken care of by a male than a female. Men are also likely to be stronger and more able to help pick a client up if they have a fall. There are certain aspects of the job that are more suited to males than females. There are hopes that the National Living Wage, which will be of significant benefit to care workers, will add initiative and incentive for those outside the stereotypical demographic to apply to work to provide health care.

Written By:

Daniel James
www.danieljamesbio.com
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