To cannot believe this Telegraph headline

[BendyBusBuggy]

My first ever AIBU and apologies if this has done before, the headline is two days old, but seriously?? :

Women will have to give up work to look after parents unless EU care workers are given priority after Brexit

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/08/05/women-will-have-give-work-look-parents-unless-eu-care-workers here]]

Sunflower u asked the question. Its been answered. If u dont like it . . .

We also managed because we had fewer people living so long in poor health.

Yes. More old people requiring attention. As many posters have said, not enough care staff because we've insulted them and told them they're not required so have gone where more welcome and valued. Perversely, the older leave voters will be hardest hit by this deficit but at least they've got their country back.

Firesuit. Raise those salaries. Good luck with that. Where will you start? How will you fundnit?

Even if society were not obsessed with women being the caring ones, women generally outlive their husbands and certainly in most of the cases I know of, it is the widowed retiree now caring for an even more elderly mother. Women will bear the brunt as a result of longeivity as well as sexism.

Britain seems to me to be not that Great anymore, in fact it is a total basketcase.

The elements that cause angst will affect many, but not so those who are the ardent Brexit mongers in Parliament.

The Emperor is naked, and always was.

Who really cares/cared for the little people anyway? Keep calm and carry on is bullshit.

We are doomed to a future without any regulation. Think about it.

The point of a headline is to be factually correct according to its sources and to make it read it.

Not to make you feel nice.

It will also especially be women because we still,statistically earn less. So even in a dual person household, if it is the MIL but the woman earns half what the man does - she will end up being the carer.

As already said on this thread... Women are more likely to give up their work to look after children, loved ones etc.

They are also more likely to live longer... Is this headline pc? No. Do I appreciate the headline? Most certainly not.

But I also believe that the headline isn't really the issue...

We should raise salaries until we can attract enough UK workers to do the jobs.

It takes 9 yrs to train a GP. 7-9yrs to train most types of doctor. We can't train them faster. Uk Medical schools don't even have enough spaces now for all the doctors needed now, never mind needed in 10 yrs time (when the population will generally be even older & therefore need even more medical care). Replicate that for nurses,& other health professionals.

We shouldn't import workers. We should raise salaries until we can attract enough UK workers to do the jobs. If that means other jobs gets priced out of existence, and we have less to spend on other things, so be it. Importing workers is a bodge to compensate for the fact that certain jobs are underpaid

I don't include seasonal farm-workers in this. If you can get certain jobs done by people who leave when the job is done, that's not the same thing as expanding the population by importing additional workers who settle here permanently

The permanent population needs to do all the jobs that need doing, expanding the population because it somehow seems cheaper in the short-term is an idiots way to solve shortfalls

@Firesuit - unfortunately this is not feasible and makes no sense either economically or socially.

The demographics of the UK population mean that there are not sufficient young British people to either care for the older and infirm citizens, or to earn and therefore pay sufficient tax to fund the care. The post-war baby boomers are living longer and having more health issues at the same time as the UK birth rate has been steadily falling. So the UK has to import workers, both to look after those who need care and to pay taxes to fund the care services. Even if you doubled salaries, there would not be sufficient qualified British people to fill the need - and general taxes (and therefore wages) would have to increase greatly to fund the increased salaries, making British-made products uncompetitive in the home and export markets.

It would be good if the government would train more British care staff and not be so reliant on skilled foreign workers, but the solution of employing skilled foreign workers is not cheap, and is pragmatic rather than idiotic - even if the government decided on this course of action tomorrow, it would be 10 years before these staff became sufficiently proficient, and demographics dictate that there might still be a shortfall in resources.

It will also especially be women because we still,statistically earn less. So even in a dual person household, if it is the MIL but the woman earns half what the man does - she will end up being the carer.

Yes, and to those saying women work because they need to financially so they can't give up work..you miss the point. It happens daily already. No, they can't really afford to give up work but they can't let their family die either.

It's why so many carers live in poverty.

if it is the MIL but the woman earns half what the man does - she will end up being the carer.

Unless she divorces the bloke. I'd rather be divorced and in poverty than a carer for an elderly person who's not blood related to me.

The demographics of the UK population mean that there are not sufficient young British people to either care for the older and infirm citizens, or to earn and therefore pay sufficient tax to fund the care. The post-war baby boomers are living longer and having more health issues at the same time as the UK birth rate has been steadily falling. So the UK has to import workers, both to look after those who need care and to pay taxes to fund the care services.

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. Are you saying the population of Britain must expand indefinitely until it's standing room only, and then we'll have to start reclaiming land from the sea to make room for more immigrants to pay taxes and wipe the bums of the by then billions that are already here?

It might be OK to import people to stabilise the population level, if we are having children at below population replacement rate, but that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about expanding the population because in the short-term, it's the quickest and easiest way to fill certain jobs. But by taking the quick and easy route, we store up problems for the future. Those imported people will get old and need caring for too. On a long-term view, it's a stupid solution.

I agree it might take 10 years to eliminate reliance on immigration. If you think that's such a long time that it's not even worth starting then that's the kind of political short-termism I'm complaining about.

On a whole world-level, the birth-rate has stabilised and I think once the death-rate stabilises the world population will start slowly reducing. Which is probably a good thing, there are too many people.

Changing demographics may mean the future is in some respects worse than it was in a time of expanding population, but that's not a good reason to be in favour of continous expansion. We need to either find other solutions to the problems or simply put up with being in some sense poorer. (I believe we will be richer, the unprecedented and sudden wealth we have today comes from the industrial revolution, where fossil fuels replaced muscle power in powering the economy. We need to replace using fossil fuels with using sunlight directly, which will happen soon, but the exponential growth in human wealth will not be much affected by a gradual decline in the population, given the increasing amounts of economic output generated by machines.)

Are you saying the population of Britain must expand indefinitely until it's standing room only, and then we'll have to start reclaiming land from the sea to make room for more immigrants to pay taxes and wipe the bums of the by then billions that are already here

No, I state quite clearly that due to the post-war demographics of the UK, there are too few young people to do the work required to support the economy, the health service and to care for the older generation. There are not billions of people in the UK. The country is not reclaiming land. The population is not expanding indefinitely - it actually expands at a fairly controlled rate. Immigrants only arrive to take the jobs that are available - they don't risk a month's salary to travel half way across Europe only to be unemployed. When jobs cease to be available, or it becomes less attractive for them in the UK, the EU immigrants move elsewhere - net migration to the UK from the EU8 countries (Poland, Czech Rep etc) last year was only 7,000 people.

I agree it might take 10 years to eliminate reliance on immigration. If you think that's such a long time that it's not even worth starting then that's the kind of political short-termism I'm complaining about

Your words, not mine. I agree that the UK should train more nurses, doctors, (and also more engineers, lorry drivers, mechanics, butchers, plumbers etc) but the UK will always be reliant on immigration, for the demographic reasons stated earlier.

While I agree that a 10-year plan is a great start (and why have UK governments of both ideologies not done this earlier?) the reality is that the UK has to be pragmatic. Your granny needs her bum wiped today not in 10 years time. Your husband needs his cancer operation within 3 months not in 2028. You want bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow- so the food production companies need vets (90% from the EU), butchers (mostly from the EU), lorry drivers to deliver the goods (average age of British drivers is mid-50s, average age of EU drivers working in the UK is late 20s) and so on.

I can't remember the last time a party won power on promise that they would absolutely RAISE taxes to create more public services & training places.

EveningShadows & longwayoff

I apologise for my simplistic and – in the context of this thread – rather glib comment.

the work required to support the economy, the health service and to care for the older generation is part of a dodgy premise.

300 years ago almost everyone was involved in food production, now hardly anyone is. There is infinite potential flexibility in how the workforce is deployed. A vast number of jobs that currently exist need not necessarily exist in even quite attractive futures. The idea that there is some status quo of jobs that must be maintained on top of which we need additional health care workers is a false premise. It also implies that it's less important to have heath-care workers than hairdressers, taxi drivers, accountants etc. If we have to import workers, it should be for the least important jobs, because when we allocate people to tasks the most important jobs should come first! It should the least valuable jobs where we choose between them not being done and importing workers to do them.

Demographics are only a problem in healthcare if there are literally not enough people physically in the country to do the healthcare, after you've exclude any fit people who are doing anything more important than healthcare. So, to be a bit silly and simplistic, as long as the number of hairdressers in the country is not zero, we are not demographically short of people to do healthcare.

So, to be a bit silly and simplistic, as long as the number of hairdressers in the country is not zero, we are not demographically short of people to do healthcare.

But that doesn't matter, since you cannot force people to provide healthcare. And if you do, well, I can see that being a very real opportunity for those who have been forced to provide it to engage in criminal behaviour towards their charges. It's an ideal chance for them to steal and abuse.

Have you ever read the comments section at the Telegraph? It's full of misogynistic dinosaurs who moan to each other that feminism has ruined the country and we need to restore the natural authority of men, blah, blah, blah. That headline would be out of place in most 21st century newspapers, but not this one.

Has the U.K. ever met it’s caring needs itself? I don’t think it has, has it?

It’s always been relatively prosperous so has always imported care workers.

Only poor countries don’t import care workers.

Rich households buy in nursing help when papa gets ill, so precious daughter can still study and dashing son can finish his officer training. Whereas in poor households children give up their aspirations to stay at home and care for their old ma and da. This is writ large at a country level - either you are rich and import, or you are poor and sacrifice education and youth potential to the caring needs of a richer country.

It’s not right or fair of course. But it is what happens.

Except you could get a situation in which some become educated enough to where they reject giving up jobs, or cannot afford to, to become carers.

Maybe we shouldn't import workers but we've been doing it for 60 odd years and nobody's found a viable alternative. Never did I think that I'd reach my age and see women's rights going down the pan the way they are now. It looks to me as if women are being thrown under the bus in all sorts of ways and it makes me really angry. Really, really fucking angry.

Probably a stupid question, but how did we manage before the influx of EU workers in recent years?

Smaller proportion of very elderly people plus higher unemployment.

Unemployment is around 4% at present, which is very low. It's at the bottom end of the range that permits labour movement without the risk of inflationary pressures caused by lack of workers. When there are fewer people job hunting, "unpopular" kinds of employment, such as care work, are disproportionately affected.

God knows how bad the shortage would be if councils hadn't been forced to raise the threshold at which they will provide help to meet spending targets. Ten years ago, people much less needy would have qualified for support from adult social care, but the threshold has been raised to the maximum in almost every council.