Unemployment among women aged 50 to 64 has risen 39% in two years compared with a 5% rise for all over-16s

Middle-aged women are by far the worst hit by the recession and spending cuts, according to new research.

As well as picking up family responsibilities at both ends of the age spectrum – children and elderly parents – and bearing the brunt of pension changes, middle-aged women are also suffering heavily from job losses, the research suggests. Figures from the House of Commons library extracted by Labour show unemployment among women aged 50 to 64 has risen by 39% in the last two years, compared with an overall rise of 5% among over-16s.

In the period December 2011 to February 2012, there were 153,000 women aged 50 to 64 out of work – the highest number since the Office for National Statistics began collecting such data in 1992. Age discrimination claims that reached tribunal stage were up by almost a third in the past year.

In the past year, unemployment among men in that age group has fallen by 1%, but has risen by 16% among women. Unemployment among all women rose by 11%.

Although the political narrative has focused on the "squeezed middle" – working families who are seeing price rises and pay cuts eat into their household budgets – it is middle-generation women who are holding things together, under pressure as never before, while being disproportionately squeezed out of the labour market.

At the same time, this "stretched middle" is being adversely affected by other cuts. Many grandmothers are giving up work or going part-time to help their own working children avoid rising childcare costs.

"Women in their 50s and 60s are also most likely to be carers for elderly parents or relatives and are having to do more as social care budgets are being cut," said Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary and shadow minister for women and equalities.

She said the Labour party had extracted the research after hearing anecdotal evidence that this group in society was feeling ignored and frustrated.

Statistics show women are significantly more likely to be carers overall than men, and caring is most common in the 45-to-74 age group.

That group already suffers from a gender pay gap of 10% (for 50-to-59-year-olds) while older women are less likely to be in a senior position than men – just 8% of women workers in their 50s are in managerial positions, compared with 16% of men.

The irony is that it is this generation of baby boomers who campaigned for equality in the workplace yet still face a combination of ageism and sexism.

Women in the "stretched middle", plugging the gaps at both ends of family life, are also facing increases in the state pension age. "A double-dip recession made in Downing Street and the biggest squeeze on living standards for generations is leaving women in their 50s and 60s really overstretched," said Cooper.

"Women in their 50s and 60s have seen the steepest increases in unemployment, the biggest assault on their pensions, and at the same time they are still being stretched in all directions, looking after their children and grandchildren, and caring for elderly relatives too.

"Women over 50 have seen unemployment rise by 16% in the space of a year – a steeper increase even than for young people, who have been hardest hit overall. At the same time older men's unemployment has barely changed.

"They have been heavily affected by public sector redundancies and their pensions have been hardest hit of all, with women in their mid-50s unfairly targeted by the sudden pension age changes, some losing up to £11,000 as a result.

"Ministers seem to have no idea how much women in their 50s and 60s are already doing to support their families and communities, and to take the strain when things get tough."