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Chapter 1: The Plan That Was Never a Plan

5 sources. Checked September 2026.

Every claim in this chapter is traced to the source behind it. Below is each one, numbered as it appears in the book, with a link that opens the original.

  1. Office for National Statistics, Unpaid care by age, sex and deprivation, England and Wales: Census 2021 (2023). An estimated 5.0 million usual residents aged 5 and over provided unpaid care in 2021 (9.0% of the population, or roughly one in eleven).
    www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/socialcare/articles/unpaidcarebyagesexanddeprivationenglandandwales/census2021
  2. Carers UK, Key facts and figures (policy and research page, accessed August 2026), citing Census 2021: 5.8 million unpaid carers across the UK; 59% of unpaid carers in England and Wales are female.
    www.carersuk.org/policy-and-research/key-facts-and-figures
  3. Lin, I-F. and Wolf, D.A., "Division of Parent Care Among Adult Children," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 75(10), 2230–2239 (2019). US study using National Health and Aging Trends Study data, 2011–2017, of 3,316 older adults with more than one child. 73.8% received help from only one child at baseline; mean equality index 0.10 (scale 0–1).
    pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7751154
  4. Carers UK, State of Caring 2024: The impact of unpaid caring on employment (2024). 40% of surveyed carers reported having given up work at some point to care; 44% of employed carers reported reducing their working hours.
    www.carersuk.org/reports/state-of-caring-2024-the-impact-of-unpaid-caring-on-employment
  5. Chanfreau, J. and Goisis, A., "Patterns of help and care by adult only children and children with siblings," Ageing and Society (Cambridge University Press, published online 6 April 2022; listed in press for full volume/issue as of August 2026), using data from the 1946, 1958 and 1970 British birth cohort studies (over 30,000 people). Only children were about one and a half times more likely than those with siblings to be providing care for a parent by their fifties, and more than twice as likely by their early sixties.
    www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ageing-and-society/article/patterns-of-help-and-care-by-adult-only-children-and-children-with-siblings/BE3BA0BBCA394358492FB78680480FEA

Sources for the other chapters are listed at ageingparent.co.uk/sources. Free guides on the topics in this book are at ageingparent.co.uk.