Increase in carers

As Census 2016 was a no change census, the questions on caring in 2011 and 2016 are directly comparable. The census showed a total of 195,263 persons (4.1% of population) were providing unpaid assistance to others, an increase of 8,151 (4.4%) on the 2011 figure of 187,112. Women made up just over 6 in 10 carers (60.5%, 118,151 carers) with 77,112 (39.5%) men. There were 3,800 children under 15 years engaged in providing care to others, accounting for 1.9 per cent of all carers.

Figure 5.1 shows the change in the number of male and female carers in each five year age group between 2011 and 2016. Over half of carers (52.7%) were between the ages of 40 and 59, with the age group 50-54 accounting for almost 15 per cent (14.7%) of all carers.

There was a reduction in the number of carers in all age categories up to 44 years between 2011 and 2016, but increases in older carers, with the largest percentage increase seen among those aged 85 and over where numbers rose from 1,318 to 1,776 a rise of 34.7 per cent.

Interactive table: StatBank Link E9044

Carers by administrative county

Dublin city had the highest number of carers with 20,808, representing 10.7% of carers in the State. This was followed by Cork county with 18,269 (9.4%), South Dublin with 10,534 and Fingal with 10,515 (both 5.4%).

Even though Fingal had over 10,000 carers, they represented just 3.6 per cent of the population of the county, the lowest of any administrative county. Kildare (3.7%), Galway city (3.7%) and Dublin city, South Dublin, Meath (all 3.8%) also had relatively lower number of carers compared with other counties, as illustrated in Map 5.1.

Sligo had the highest proportion of its population engaged in unpaid care where 4.73 per cent of people identified themselves as carers. This was followed by counties Mayo (4.7%), Clare (4.62%) and Kerry (4.58%). 

Interactive table: StatBank Link E9049

Hours caring

The 195,263 carers provided 6,608,515 hours of care each week, giving an average (excluding not stated) of 38.7 hours of unpaid care per carer. This is up on the 38.3 average hours care in 2011 and a rise of 321,005 hours of total unpaid care. Women provided almost two thirds (65.9%) of all care hours.

The average number of hours of care provided was 5.5 hours per day. Just over 72.2 per cent of carers (123,356) provided up to this level of care providing almost 1.5 million care hours (1,452,190) per week. The remaining 47,580 carers provided more than 5.5 hours of care per day, accounting for 5,156,325 hours of care. A total of 4,244 people provided between 10 and 12 hours care per day, with 2,808 persons contributing 14 to 16 hours of care a day.  The chart also shows the 16,926 people who provided care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, provided a total of over 2.8 million hours (2,843,568) of care per week, nearly 148 million hours (147,865,536) a year. In all,  stated caring hours amounted to over 343 million hours (343,642,780) of unpaid care a year.

Figure 5.2 shows that 83,754 carers provided up to 2 hours of care a day representing 8.3% of the all care hours provided. At the other end of the scale just 16,926 carers (8.7% of all carers) providing 24 hour care accounted for a total of 2,843,568 hours care representing 43% of all care hours provided.

Hours caring by young carers

Figure 5.4 gives details of the number of carers and the hours of care provided by the 3,800 children under the age of 15, making up 1.9 per cent of the carers in the State. The number of young carers fell by 428 (10.1%) from 4,228 in 2011. Half of these children (1,901) providing unpaid care were aged 10 and under, down from 2,170 (-12.4%) in 2011.

Of those who provided information, the majority, almost 4 in 5 (78.9%) provided up to 2 hours care per day. There were 133 children providing more than 12 hours of care a  day, accounting for 20,588 hours weekly, which is almost half (48.8%) of the 42,227 weekly care hours provided by children under 15. Young carers overall provided an average of 16.1 hours of care each week.