Scotland's Carers 2026: main report

1. Background

The figures in this report are derived from analysis of robust survey data, and are considered the most accurate estimates of the number of carers in Scotland for the period 2019-2023. It is, however, important to consider factors affecting the gathering of data on unpaid carers.

Research has found it can be difficult to identify people who are carers. Often this is related to carers not self-identifying as such for a number of reasons: 

• Carers can take a long time to identify with their caring roles and may have been providing care for a number of years before considering themselves as “carers”. UK survey evidence suggests half of all carers (51%) take over a year to recognise their caring role and over a third (36%) take over three years to recognise themselves as carers. (Carers UK, 2022).
• People generally begin providing unpaid care in a gradual way, often starting with the provision of sporadic and low intensity care tasks (e.g. running light errands, coordinating appointments etc.) (Shulz et al, 2020), which are less recognised as care than tasks which require frequent physical assistance.
• Those who provide care for someone with fewer health conditions/limitations are less likely to self-identify as carers (Whitley and Benzeval, 2025).
• More people come to identify as a carer when caring intensifies, which is common, and at key junctures such as giving up employment to care (Carduff, et al., 2014).
• Both women and men are likely to not self-identify as carers in different contexts. In one study, European men who were providing care to their spouses were less likely both to self-identify as carers, and to be acknowledged as carers by their partners (Rodrigues et al., 2024). However, women are generally thought to be less likely to self-identify as carers since their caring role is often subsumed into their other existing roles, e.g. wife, daughter, mother etc. (Eikfert et al., 2015).
• Identifying as a carer necessitates acknowledgement that the other person needs care, which can be difficult for one or both parties to do (Carduff, et al., 2014). UK evidence on caring between spouses suggests that those who were providing care to their partners but didn’t identify themselves as carers were more likely to report they were happy with their relationships than those who did identify themselves as carers, regardless of the age, gender and health status of their cared-for partner (Whitley and Benzeval, 2025).
• Recent evidence from a small, targeted sample of 173 Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) carers in Scotland suggests that many BME carers do not initially see themselves as ‘carers’ since caregiving is viewed as a natural family duty, especially when caring for children or elders (Woolrych and Hasan, 2025).
• This problem of so-called “hidden carers” is not specific to Scotland, and is well established as an obstacle for policymaking across the UK (Carers UK, 2022) as well as in Europe (Rodrigues et al., 2024) and North America (Eikfert, 2015).