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A narrative has developed in recent years to link ageing without children to support needs in later life. Social care has long been viewed as a private, familial responsibility, whilst health care is a societal, public good. Childlessness is framed negatively in terms of increased demands on care services and wider family networks. As governments tackle the issue of how to fund and deliver an equitable and sustainable long-term care sector, this paper aims to argue that it is more critical than ever to evaluate views of childlessness in the context of ageing.

Policy-oriented commentary paper.

If the focus on childlessness and ageing is through a lens of a potential care deficit, this continues to frame ageing without children as a risk and does little to challenge increasing reliance on unpaid care. Research and policy need to explore how to make access to social care more equitable and reduce expectations of unpaid care. They also need to increasingly emphasise exploration of aspects of later life beyond the issue of care, for example, by more of a focus on communities, what matters to people to age well and lives that extend beyond traditional views of nuclear families.

This paper uses the UK as a contextual example to argue that the research and policy communities have a role to play in evaluating their constructions of childlessness and ageing and questioning whether they do little more than legitimise government’s unwillingness to take responsibility for social care.

The study aims to compare survey recruitment rates between Facebook, Twitter and Qualtrics and to assess the impact of recruitment method on estimates of energy content, food safety, carbon footprint and animal welfare across 29 foods.

Two versions of an online survey were developed on the citizen science platform, Zooniverse. The surveys explored citizen estimations of energy density (kcal) or carbon footprint (Co₂) and food safety or animal welfare of 29 commonly eaten foods. Survey recruitment was conducted via paid promotions on Twitter and Facebook and via paid respondent invites on Qualtrics. The study included approximately 500 participants (Facebook, N˜11 (ratings 358), Twitter, N˜85 (ratings 2,184), Qualtrics, N = 398 (ratings 11,910)). Kruskal–Wallis and Chi-square analyses compared citizen estimations with validated values and assessed the impact of the variables on estimations.

Citizens were unable to accurately estimate carbon footprint and energy content, with most citizens overestimating values. Citizen estimates were most accurate for meat products. Qualtrics was the most successful recruitment method for the online survey. Citizen estimates between platforms were significantly different, suggesting that Facebook and Twitter may not be suitable recruitment methods for citizen online surveys.

Qualtrics was the favourable platform for survey recruitment. However, estimates across all recruitment platforms were poor. As paid recruitment methods such as Qualtrics are costly, the authors recommend continued examination of the social media environment to develop appropriate, affordable and timely online recruitment strategies for citizen science.

The findings indicate that citizens are unable to accurately estimate the carbon footprint and energy content of foods suggesting a focus on consumer education is needed to enable consumers to move towards more sustainable and healthy diets. Essential if we are to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals of zero hunger, good health and wellbeing and responsible consumption and production. The study highlights the utility of Zooniverse for assessing citizen estimates of carbon footprint, energy content, animal welfare and safety of foods.