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by Howard Gleckman for his blog
The typical family caregiver is a 50-something woman who spends 27 hours a week caring for an aging parent who has two or more serious medical conditions, and is doing so with little outside assistance, according to a new survey by the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.
While that describes a typical caregiver, many different family members serve as caregivers, and many kinds of people are being helped. For example, the survey, called Caregiving in the US, found that 4 million children under age 18 are helping to care for relatives with physical or cognitive limitations.
The study is valuable because it is the fifth in a series going back to 1997. Strikingly, while it shows some important changes, the basic story remains the same: Millions of Americans are struggling to care for relatives who increasingly need help with their daily activities, from bathing to shopping.
The new study estimates that in 2024, about 63 million people were caring for aging parents, spouses, or children with disabilities and serious illnesses. That’s an increase of 16 million in the past decade.
The survey counts anyone who has provided “ongoing care over the past year to adults or children with complex medical conditions or disabilities.” It defines family caregiving “as providing ongoing supports and management of complex care tasks for children and adults with chronic, disabling, or serious health conditions.”
About 41 million of those being cared for are age 65 or older. Other research has come up with somewhat lower estimates. For example, Jennifer Wolff and colleagues at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, estimated 24 million family members were caring for older adults in 2022, up from 18 million a decade earlier.
Similarly, in 2023 the Bureau of Labor statistics estimated 37 million family members were providing care for older adults.
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