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Leaders love numbers.
Numbers tell us how big a problem is, how fast something is changing, where resources are going, and whether an issue deserves our attention. Organizations routinely track revenue, turnover, absenteeism, customer satisfaction, productivity, and utilization.
We’re accustomed to seeing such numbers, but in this blog post I want to highlight another set of numbers that today’s organizational leaders should understand: the numbers behind caregiving in the U.S.
Caregiving is often perceived as something that happens somewhere else: inside families, outside the workplace, and beyond the responsibility of organizational leaders. However, the statistics tell a different story. Millions of people are simultaneously employees, parents, spouses, adult children, students, neighbors, and caregivers. Inevitably, each person’s caregiving responsibilities intersect with the organizations and systems around them.
The following family caregiver statistics help leaders see caregiving more clearly: not just as a private family matter, but as a significant human and organizational reality.
Statistic #1: 63 Million Americans (One in Four Adults) Are Family Caregivers
Source: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the U.S. 2025
Sixty-three million is a difficult number to ignore. It answers a question I hear often: How many caregivers are in the U.S.? According to a 2025 national study, nearly one-quarter of American adults provide ongoing care to an adult or child with a complex medical condition or disability. That represents a whopping increase of about 20 million caregivers since 2015.
For leaders, the implication is straightforward: Caregiving is not a niche issue. If you lead an organization with 100 employees, a significant portion of those employees may be caregivers. The same is true of patients in a health system, students at a university, customers of a business, and residents of a community.
Leaders who think caregiving affects only “other people” are probably overlooking the individuals who are within their sphere of responsibility.
Statistic #2: 29% of Family Caregivers Caring for Adults Are Also Raising Children
Source: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Sandwich Generation Caregivers (2025)
Nearly 17 million Americans are simultaneously raising children and caring for an adult with a complex medical condition or disability.
This number is not significant simply because these caregivers have “more to do.” The hard reality is that caregiving responsibilities often overlap; they do not occur in neat, sequential stages. A person can be a parent, employee, spouse, adult child, and family caregiver at the same time.
That should change how leaders think about workforce management.
A caregiver may appear to have the same job description, schedule, and organizational expectations as everyone else while carrying an entirely different set of responsibilities outside the organization. Leaders who understand this reality can ask better questions about flexibility, scheduling, and supports, rather than assuming that every employee functions like a cog in a wheel.
Statistic #3: More Than 40% of Family Caregivers Provide High-Intensity Care, Yet Only 22% Receive Training
Source: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the U.S. 2025 Key Findings
The phrase “family caregiver” can make caregiving sound informal and relatively simple. The data challenge that assumption. More than 40% of caregivers now provide high-intensity care. Many perform complex tasks such as administering injections, managing equipment, or coordinating complicated care. Yet only 22% report receiving training (I was surprised the number was even that high).
This creates an important leadership question: What are we expecting people to know and do without preparing them to do it?
Healthcare leaders should care because family caregivers are increasingly part of the care delivery system. Employers should care because employees may be managing demanding responsibilities before, after, or sometimes during their workday. Community leaders should care because unsupported caregivers can become overwhelmed precisely when the people they care for most need them.
The label “family caregiver” should not obscure the complexity of the caregiving tasks being performed.
Statistic #4: 38.2 Million People Provided Unpaid Eldercare in 2023–2024
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey: Unpaid Eldercare in the United States
The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 38.2 million people aged 15 and older (14% of the civilian noninstitutional population in that age group) provided unpaid eldercare during 2023–2024. On days when they provided care, eldercare providers spent an average of 3.9 hours doing so.
Nearly four hours may not sound extraordinary until we recognize what those hours compete with: time for work, sleep, exercise, parenting, education, relationships, and simply recovering from the demands of daily life.
Caregiving is therefore also a time issue, something leaders should note.
Time is one resource that cannot be replenished through good intentions. When organizations design policies and approach workload management around an assumption of unlimited employee availability, they must recognize that caregivers experience the mismatch first.
Statistic #5: Half of Family Caregivers Report a Negative Financial Impact From Caregiving
Source: AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving, Caregiving in the U.S. 2025
Half of family caregivers report that caregiving has negatively affected their finances. One-quarter report taking on debt because of caregiving, and one in five report being unable to afford basic necessities such as food.
These numbers should cause leaders to think beyond wages.
A caregiver’s financial strain may result from reduced work hours, missed opportunities, additional transportation expenses, medical costs, or the need to purchase services. An employee may remain on the payroll while simultaneously experiencing a significant erosion of financial security due to caregiving responsibilities.
For employers, this makes caregiving relevant to benefits, retention, engagement, productivity, and long-term workforce stability. For healthcare and community leaders, it raises another question: What happens when the person providing the care can no longer afford to keep providing it?
Statistic #6: 42% of Working Caregivers Say Caregiving Responsibilities Hinder Their Career Advancement
SHRM reports that 42% of working caregivers surveyed say their caregiving responsibilities hinder their career advancement.
That statistic moves caregiving directly into the leadership conversation.
Organizations often say they want to retain experienced employees, develop leaders, and create equitable opportunities for advancement. Yet if caregiving responsibilities systematically interfere with career progression, organizations may unintentionally lose experienced talent or create advancement systems that favor people with fewer responsibilities outside of work.
The question for leaders is more than “Do we have a caregiver policy?” A more revealing question might be, “What does it take to succeed here while also being a caregiver?”
Statistic #7: Unpaid Caregivers Provide the Equivalent of $1 Trillion in Care Each Year
Source: AARP Public Policy Institute, 2026 “Valuing the Invaluable” Report
AARP estimates that unpaid caregivers provide the equivalent of $1 trillion in care each year.
This is why I call family caregivers the secret of our long-term care delivery system. Families provide a staggering amount of care that would otherwise have to be delivered or financed by formal systems.
In other words, caregivers are not just receiving support from the healthcare and social-service systems; they are helping those systems function.
That makes family caregivers an integral part of the infrastructure of American life.
These Family Caregiver Statistics Should Change What Leaders Notice
Caregiver statistics are useful when they help us see things more clearly.
Sixty-three million family caregivers. Seventeen million sandwich caregivers. More than 40% providing high-intensity care. Thirty-eight million providing unpaid eldercare. Half experiencing financial consequences. Forty-two percent of working caregivers reporting career impacts. One trillion dollars in economic value.
Taken together, these numbers paint a compelling picture of caregiving in the U.S. Caregiving is widespread. It is increasingly complex. It consumes significant amounts of time. It carries major financial implications. And it affects people’s ability to participate and advance in organizations.
Leaders will not be able to solve every individual caregiving challenge. No single employer, healthcare system, university, or community organization can do that.
Leaders can, however, recognize that family caregivers are not exceptions. Family caregivers are everywhere.
Knowing how many caregivers are in the U.S. is a starting point. After noticing the caregivers in their own organizations, leaders can begin changing the dialogue by asking three important questions:
- Who are the caregivers in our organization or community?
- What are we asking them to carry that we cannot see?
- What could we change so that people do not have to choose between being a good caregiver and being a successful employee, student, professional, or community member?
These caregiver statistics make the case for paying attention. What leaders do with them is the next chapter.
If you’d like to continue the conversation with me about how to better support your caregivers, please reach out.
Posted in Caregiving
