Caregiving: A challenge for workers and their employers

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers have a second job they don’t get paid for: They are caregivers for parents or children.

The Caregiving at Work Forum, sponsored by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, focused on the experiences of these working caregivers.

Caregiving interconnects health and wealth for workers who provide care, said Lisa Weber Raley of Greenwald Research, who presented findings from EBRI’s and Greenwald’s research into caregivers in the workforce.

One in 4 U.S. adults is a caregiver, Raley said, with 90% of those caregivers providing unpaid care for an adult, 42% providing unpaid care for a child and 32% caring for both.

Grocery shopping, transportation and meal preparation are the three most common tasks that working caregivers perform, Raley said. Working caregivers spend more than 23 hours a week on care, and they spend an average of more than five years providing care.

“This is not a short-term situation,” she said. “It’s a long-term sustained effort people are putting in every week.”

Even among workers who are not currently caregiving, many have done so in the past and many expect to do so in the future. The research found 43% of workers have been a caregiver previously while 53% said it’s likely they will provide care sometime in the next five years.

“This is not just a ‘now’ situation; it’s a strategic situation for employers to address going forward,” Raley said.

Caregivers in the workforce are most likely to be between the ages of 25 and 49 (40%), to be women (58%), to be a full-time employee (73%) and to have an annual household income of $100,000 or higher (43%).

The ripple effect of caregiving

Caregiving has a ripple effect on workers, Raley said. Working caregivers report lower household savings and investments, and lower financial preparedness than non-caregiving workers. In addition, caregivers were more likely than non-caregivers to have retired earlier than planned because they had to care for a spouse or other family member.

Working caregivers report lower well-being than non-caregivers. More than two-thirds of working caregivers said it is challenging to maintain a good balance between work and caregiving responsibilities, while 77% of working caregivers said thinking about their financial future makes them feel stressed.

The research also found that 42% of working caregivers believe a flexible work schedule is the most important benefit their employer can provide.

“There is a lot that challenges caregivers,” Raley said. “You never know when something like this might strike your life.”

© Entire contents copyright 2026 by InsuranceNewsNet.com Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted without the expressed written consent from InsuranceNewsNet.com.

Susan Rupe is editor in chief, magazine, for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at susan.rupe@innfeedback.com.