It's Official: 1/3 of American Adults are Caregivers

Several years ago, a New York Times Magazine article drew fire for suggesting that highly education women are “opting out” of work to care for their children.

Now, a new report gives credence to the so-called “opt-out generation” and also shines a light on the other kinds of caregiving happening in the U.S., including elder-care.

Caregiving in the U.S., funded by MetLife and conducted for the National Alliance of Caregiving in collaboration with the AARP, reports that 65.7 million Americans are caregivers. Each caregiver provides an average of 20-hours of care each week.

The report finds that the vast majority (66%) of caregivers are female, and most caregivers are not actually caring for children, but rather adults — seven in ten caregiver surveyed care for someone older than 50. The average caregiver isn’t young herself, either: the report shows that the average age of caregivers increased from 46 to 49. What’s more, more than a third of caregivers reported being “highly stressed.”

“Now in addition to family and work, [baby] boomers have added caregiving —the equivalent of a part time job—to their responsibilities,” said Elinor Ginzler, AARP Senior Vice President for Livable Communities, in a press statement. “Their work, health and time with family and friends already bear some of the cost for this amped up juggling act.”

The report further points out that caregiving forces many women to put their career and financial futures on hold. Seven in ten respondents worked full-time in addition to their caregiving duties. Of those who worked, two thirds said that caregiving had made them late for work, leave early from work, or forced them to take days off of work.

The report calls for more recognition of caregivers, saying they are a critical piece of the health care puzzle and that, without them, Medicaid likely would have to shoulder even more costs for care.