As we honor National Caregiver Month this November, it’s time to recognize that caregiving is no longer a peripheral issue—it’s a central force shaping workforce dynamics, employee well-being, and organizational resilience. For over 35 years, the Boston College Center for Work & Family (BCCWF) has driven progress on critical work-life issues related to caregiving, emphasizing the importance of flexible work, paid leave for parents and caregivers of all types, and promoting men as equal caregivers. From our recent conversations with work-life practitioners and thought leaders, it is clear that employers are looking for ways to better understand the care demographics of their workforces and the invisible loads they carry, and respond with supports that make a difference.

The Caregiving Reality: Universal, Invisible, and Intensifying

“Working while caregiving” is a nearly universal experience. Whether supporting aging parents, children with disabilities, spouses with chronic illness, or navigating end-of-life care, employees are managing complex responsibilities alongside their professional roles. Yet many do not self-identify as caregivers, and only 56% report that their supervisor is aware of their caregiving status (AARP 2015).

This invisibility has consequences. Without recognition or support, caregivers are more likely to experience burnout, take extended leave, downshift their careers, or leave the workforce altogether. In fact, caregivers are 3.4 times more likely to consider quitting during a leave of absence than before taking leave (Grayce 2024).

The Rising Burden of Care: Why Caregiving is a Workforce Issue

Caregiving demands are increasing rapidly, forcing prime working-age adults to take on more unpaid care responsibilities. This burden is driven by several demographic and structural shifts, including an aging population, the increasing diagnosis of serious illnesses (often at younger ages), the high cost of care, and a shortage of both child and adult care providers.

Key data points highlight the scale of this issue in the workforce:

• 73% of employees are caregivers, with over half working full-time. (Fuller et al. 2019)
• The “sandwich generation” is now the fastest growing employee segment with 23% of adults overall (and 54% of millennials)caring for both children and aging relatives (Pew Research 2021).
• The gender gap is shrinking with 44% of men and 56% of women in the workplace identifying as caregivers (Guardian 2023).
• The time devoted to family caregiving has nearly tripled since 2020ranging from 20-30 hours per week on average (Guardian 2023).
• On average family caregivers spend 26% of their income on out-of-pocket care expenses. These expenses can be much higher for caregivers of those with dementia or other intense needs, or when caring for a loved one long-distance (AARP 2021). 

Caregiving spans all genders, generations, and family structures. It’s not just a women’s issue or a parental concern—it’s a workforce-wide reality.

Who are Employees Caring For?

While childcare often dominates the conversation, most employees taking time off for caregiving are tending to adults. They are considered “informal” or “family caregivers”, who provide unpaid care and support for a family member, friend, or neighbor who cannot fully care for themselves due to age, illness, or disability. According to Grayce’s 2024 Employee Leave Trends, among employees taking leave:

• 46% are caring for a parent
• 24% are caring for a spouse or partner
• 22% are caring for a child without disabilities
• 15% are caring for a grandparent
• 9% are caring for a child with disabilities

Family caregiving is often more intense, prolonged, and less well-understood in the workplace. Most family caregivers (80%) believe companies are more understanding about childcare needs than their caregiving circumstances and, therefore, are more reluctant to share these responsibilities with leaders for fear they will be perceived as less committed (S&P/AARP 2024).

The Impact on Work, Career, and Well-being

Caregiving demands significantly impact employee productivity and career trajectories. Many employees are forced to adjust their work commitments to meet these responsibilities, with 50% reporting they went in late, left early, or took time off. More drastic and costly measures include taking a leave of absence (32%), shifting from full-time to part-time work (27%), or leaving the workforce altogether (15%). Significantly, 71% of caregivers indicate they could have avoided or reduced their leave if they had had adequate workplace support (S&P/AARP 2024).

The toll on well-being is also severe. Compared to non-caregivers, caregivers report lower well-being across every dimension—physical, emotional, and financial (Guardian 2023). 60% of caregivers screen positive for depression or anxiety, more than half say their role makes it difficult to care for their own mental health, and 41% report feeling lonely (AARP 2023). Stressors like money, family responsibilities, and economic uncertainty compound the pressure.

According to Cleo’s 2024 Family Health Index Annual Report, a key metric of caregiver well-being is burnout with several groups at heightened risk:

• Parents of neurodivergent children (65%)
• Those navigating end-of-life care (57%)
• Adult caregivers (53%)
• Sandwich generation caregivers (51%)
• All parents/caregivers (33%)

This burnout risk carries significant costs to productivity with those identified at higher risk for burnout reporting an average of 454 hours (11.4 weeks) of lost work productivity per year.

Notably the negative impacts on well-being are most pronounced in the first two years of transitioning to a caregiving role - suggesting that timely intervention can have significant benefits on well-being, productivity, and retention.

The Invisible Load: Planning, Thinking, Worrying

A growing body of research is focusing on understanding and measuring the invisible loads of working caregivers. Caregiving isn’t just about tasks—it’s about managerial (planning), cognitive (thinking) and emotional (worrying) labor, as characterized by Wake Forest University Professor Julie Wayne.

• Planning: Coordinating appointments, care schedules, and household logistics.
• Thinking: Processing medical information, financial decisions, and long-term care needs.
• Worrying: Managing emotional strain, sleep disruption, and family conflict.

While caregiving enriches family and work life to be sure, the emotional toll often leads to exhaustion, poor job performance, and increased conflict between work and family roles. Tools like the Caregiver Intensity Index and Julie Wayne’s Invisible Family Load Scale enable caregivers to measure and monitor the demands on them.

What HR Leaders Can Do

Supporting caregivers requires more than empathy—it demands culture change, employee listening, and reimagining existing benefits. Here’s where HR can lead:

1. Promote Caregiver Allyship

Create a culture of allyship where caregiving of all types is acknowledged and celebrated throughout the organization, especially by leaders. Encourage employees to share knowledge and mentor colleagues facing similar circumstances. Train managers to ask about caregiving responsibilities and connect employees to the resources available to them as early as possible during their transition to a caregiving role. Along the way, validate employees’ professional and caregiver identities to reduce guilt, increase feelings of self-efficacy, and foster belonging. Remember, caregiving is a universal experience.

2. Leverage Caregiver ERGs

Caregiver ERGs are on the rise with 65% of leading companies offering this in 2024 (Seramount 2024). Effective programming includes partnering with other ERGs, goes beyond supporting new parents, and considers factors like family type, caregiving demands, cultural context and invisible identities like neurodiversity. Tools like the AARP Caregiving ERG Toolkit provide a great roadmap for starting and sustaining an effective ERG, while EAPs can be a valuable source of data, education and training, and well-being support for ERG members.

In addition to providing an important sense of community, caregiver ERGs can be instrumental in understanding the care demographics of your workforce on a deeper level, auditing caregiver well-being and turnover intentions, and increasing the utilization of existing caregiver benefits and tools.

3. Expand Scope of Existing Work-Life Supports

With the rising cost of benefits, employers can enhance existing work-life supports to be more inclusive and personalized for all types of caregivers.  

• Flexible work arrangements are the most utilized and highly rated benefits among caregivers. When built intentionally at the team level and utilized not just by a few, flexibility remains a key strategy for supporting and retaining caregivers. 
• Caregiver leave (separate from parental leave) is gaining traction, with 47% of BCCWF member organizations offering fully paid leave for a median of 6 weeks. This leave may supplement or “top off” state-mandated PFML that covers family caregiving in a growing list of states. Trends include expanding the definition of “family” for those eligible for leave and providing structured return-to-work supports after extended absences to minimize turnover.
• Personalized tools and benefits such as caregiver concierge services, backup care, mental health support and coaching, and AI-powered benefit navigation have the potential to reduce absenteeism and turnover and boost productivity. Recent research shows these can yield measurable ROI, including up to 22.5 more hours worked per quarter (Fuller et al. 2024). Employers should work with vendors to ensure that they can serve all types of caregivers with measurable impact.
  
  

The Bottom Line: Retention Is the New Recruitment

At our Roundtable meeting last November, Harvard Business School Professor Joseph Fuller presented his groundbreaking research on working caregivers and re-framed the caregiving problem for employers:

“The focus for many of you should be retention because workers are going to be harder to get. Any strategy that allows you to remain the employer of somebody you currently employ and who performs well deserves to get close attention...If you don't solve the caregiving problem, you’re not addressing the lack of workers you will need.”

Supporting caregivers isn’t just compassionate—it’s strategic. This November, let’s move beyond celebration and toward transformation. HR leaders have the tools, data, and influence to make caregiving visible, supported, and sustainable. The future of work depends on it.

Tina Lawler McHugh, Senior Research Associate, Boston College Center for Work & Familyz
Jennifer Sabatini Fraone, Executive Director, Boston College Center for Work & Family

 Selected Sources:

• 2024 Employee Leave Trends: What Employers Need to Know (Grayce 2024)
• Healthy Outcomes (Fuller et al. 2024)
• Working While Caregiving: It’s Complicated (S&P Global/AARP 2024)
• Family Health Index Annual Report (Cleo 2024)
• Guardian 12th Annual Workplace Benefits Study (Guardian 2023)
• Caregiving Out-of-Pocket Costs Study (AARP 2021)