ways2work - Employers
What are parental, carer or family responsibilities?
It may be useful to identify the categories of worker who may have parental, family or carer responsibilities. There are several classes of worker, apart from those with young children, who may have responsibility for the care of others. Both men and women, as well as older and younger workers, may have parental, family or carer responsibilities.
Examples of parental responsibilities include cases where job applicants, employees or contract workers have to look after a child, of any age. This includes tasks such as picking-up a child from kindergarten, taking a teenage child with a disability to an appointment or staying at home to look after a sick baby. It is not only biological parents who may be involved. Step-parents, adoptive parents, foster parents or guardians of the child may also have such responsibilities.
Examples of carer responsibilities include cases where job applicants, employees or contract workers have to look after another person who is dependent on them for care and attention. This includes tasks such as caring for a sick or frail parent, partner, spouse or friend or member of their household.
Examples of family responsibilities include cases where job applicants, employees or contract workers have to care for a member of their family. The concept of ‘family’ is broad and includes a spouse and a child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling of the person or the person’s spouse.
There will often be an overlap between these categories of care or responsibility. There are also a number of different laws which apply to protection of workers with parental, family or carer responsibilities. For more information on the laws, go to Discrimination.
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