PAIS academics Professor Shirin Rai and Dr Juanita Elias have been selected as members of the Political Studies Association’s research commission on The Crisis of Care in Austerity Britain which was launched last week. Other members of the Commission include The Fawcett Society, The Women’s Budget Group and Sheffield University.

The Commission will examine the governance and regulation of care in the UK, with a particular focus on the care of older people. Prof Rai commented:

‘The crisis of care in the UK. is intensifying. While there has been considerable attention paid to this crisis in terms of the rising costs of this care to the state, less attention has been paid to the social consequences of this for older populations and those who care for them - who are overwhelmingly women. The Commission will address this gap.’

Dr. Elias noted:

‘Because the British welfare state has been important in organising, resourcing and delivering care work in the county, the restructuring of state provision of care is producing specific gendered effects which need to be more fully understood’

Prof. Nick Vaughan-Williams, head of PAIS said:

‘We are delighted to have two of our colleagues working on the critically important issue of care of older people in the UK in collaboration with leading experts and organisations working in this area. This underlines PAIS’s commitment to high quality research that has the ability to address urgent social issues and shape policy agendas’

You can read more on the comission here.