Who’s caring for aging America?

Gay Johns and Linda Draper both live in Midvale, Utah, a few miles from each other, but they are strangers. And they both fit into the growing category of Americans who can call themselves caregivers as they assist an elderly relative.

America is aging and with that comes big ripple effects — including for older adults, the economy and the workforce. But perhaps no one feels the impact more than a family member tasked with caregiving for a parent, a spouse or another aging adult.

Pew Research Center has been studying “aging America,” releasing what will be a series of reports looking at various aspects of how the nation grows old, driven in part by the fact that as this decade ends, all baby boomers will officially be senior citizens. The new caregiving report follows a previous deep dive into general attitudes about aging.

Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew, noted that much of the research in this demographic space doesn’t tease out who is receiving that care. The Pew survey pool included around 8,750 respondents polled in early September 2025. A breakout report homes in closely on the subset of 1,193 adults who consider themselves caregivers to an aging family member.

The survey found that 1 in 10 U.S. adults are caring for an aging parent, while 3% are caring for a spouse or partner. If, however, just those with a family member 65 or older are counted, it’s about 1 in 4 who claim some type of caregiving role, Parker said, calling the number “pretty significant.”

What kind of caregiving role? The most prevalent is helping with errands, housework and home repair. But a lot also manage their parents’ health care or finances and a smaller, but still significant share say they’re actually doing hands-on, personal care, according to Parker.

Filling a range of needs

Johns’ dad, Bob Capson, is 94. Draper’s mother-in-law, Nancy, is 75. Johns and Linda and Randy Draper are powerful examples of the range of need caregivers meet and the activities that qualify as caregiving.

Capson, who’s affectionately known to neighbors as “Farmer Bob” because of his extensive garden and the many productive fruit trees he diligently tends, is for the most part pretty independent. Adamantly so, as a matter of fact, Johns said of her father. But she and one of her brothers each visit separately at least weekly to help with certain tasks, like getting on the roof if something needs done or lifting heavy items, though he doesn’t like that they need to do it for him. Johns makes his doctor appointments and other calls, because he doesn’t hear as well as he used to during phone calls.

But Capson still drives himself to the store and prepares his own meals, though dinner sometimes consists of opening a can of something and heating it up.

The Drapers moved Randy’s mom into a mother-in-law apartment downstairs at their home about a year ago. Because he is now semi-retired and Linda works full time as a teacher, Randy assumes most of the caregiving duties for his mom.

Like Capson, Nancy Draper is widowed. And for many years, she lived on her own after her husband died. But she no longer cooks for herself. Her son does it. He also picks up her groceries or takes her to the store. Linda and Randy Draper do the needed driving now.

When she was growing up, Linda’s grandfather lived with her family; he had Alzheimer’s. And she helped care for her dad after school every day as a youth, too, after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. So moving in an older relative didn’t feel strange to her at all. For her husband, it was a bit more of an adjustment but he has risen to the caregiving occasion.

The tasks that family members undertake for an older relative not only exist on a spectrum, but they tend to grow in scope with time, the survey found.

“Not surprisingly, the caregiving burden gets heavier as family members age to 75 or older,” said Parker.

Income disparities in caregiving roles

There’s some inconsistency in national figures, though it’s likely a difference in definitions and metrics. A 2025 report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving said 63 million Americans are family caregivers, with 59 million caring for an adult and 4 million caring for a child with a medical condition or disability.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are 38 million unpaid family caregivers helping adults age 65 and older.

Regardless, those are all big numbers.

The AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving report found other challenges related to caregiving. For instance, as many as 23% of caregivers have reportedly taken on debt to care for a loved one.

And more than half (56%) of employed caregivers have said at some point they had to adjust their hours, arriving late, leaving early or taking time off. Nearly 1 in 5 have reduced their hours at work.

The estimated value of unpaid family caregiving labor is $600 billion. That includes all caregiving, not just for older adults.

The Pew survey found some groups tend to have more caregiving responsibility than others, as well. Women are more apt to be caregivers than men, though it’s not a very big gap.

There is, however, a “huge income gap” and lower-income family members are much more likely to take on caregiver roles than middle- and upper-income Americans, who may choose to hire help. The survey found 39% of lower-income adults with an older relative or partner are caregivers, compared with 23% of middle-income adults and 16% of upper-income adults.

The survey doesn’t explore why that is, but Parker said several possibilities come to mind. Other options may not be available to lower-income adults, who may have to cobble together a plan for a frail older relative. Pew research has also shown that “lower-income older adults have worse health outcomes, so there may be more people in need” of caregiving in that demographic, Parker said. “Or maybe there are cultural variables at play as well.”

Caregiving’s impact on relationships

Not all of the caregiving benefits accrue to the person being cared for.

In the survey findings, the impact on interactions stood out, Parker told Deseret News. Most who were caring for a parent regularly said that helping their parent with the various tasks has positively impacted their relationship with that parent.

At the same time, they said that overall, it’s had a more negative than positive effect on their own emotional well-being, physical health, financial situation and even their job and social life. Parker called it “striking” that 33% of those caring for a parent said it has negatively impacted their own physical health and 39% said the same about their emotional well-being.

Per Pew, 28% of women with an aging parent, spouse or partner consider themselves caregivers, compared to 23% of men.

As for caring for a spouse or partner, the numbers are smaller but the survey still found relationships were more positive than negative, while the impact on things like physical health and emotional well-being were more neutral than negative. “The negative impact came across more clearly in parent caregiving,” said Parker.

Parker found gender differences particularly interesting. “Women and men mostly agree there’s positive impact on the relationship with a parent. But women were ”much more likely than men to say it’s had a negative impact on their emotional well-being and physical health." For men, emotional well-being actually “tilts positive,” while for women, 47% say caregiving has taken a toll.

Nor is it likely the difference is because women do more caregiving than men, Parker said. The gap between just isn’t very big. Nor is there a big difference in the types of caregiving tasks; women aren’t doing more dressing and bathing and providing personal care.

Women do report doing more managing prescriptions and appointments and similar tasks. But they also don’t do more finances, errands or housework.

While the “why” isn’t clear, Parker said researchers speculated that women are harder on themselves in some ways that men are not and the finding could reflect that. “It may just be a different orientation toward caregiving that men and women bring to the job,” she said.

Help for caregiver families

Are there policies that would help? There’s a side report that tackles what the public would think about certain policies designed to help caregivers.

“We asked about things like giving tax credits to help pay for caregiving, paying for short-term care for aging adults to give family members a break — such as adult day care — requiring employers to provide paid family medical leave or giving direct payments for help with caregiving," Parker said.

Parker reported that, “not surprisingly, there was broad support for all those things.”

The most popular was tax credits, at 78% support, followed by respite care to give caregivers a break (71%), requiring bosses to provide paid family leave (69%) and direct payments to help with caregiving costs (63%).

The support for those policies, she added, crossed party lines. “There is a gap, with Democrats being more likely to support these things, but a majority of the Republicans support all of those approaches at the federal level, which is pretty notable.” The support was not just from those who are caregivers, either, the researchers found, but from all adults.

The survey also found that most adults said if the time ever came that they had to have assistance, they’d still like to be at home, with some help. But they were largely skeptical that could happen. Less than 40% said they thought that would be feasible for them.

Higher-income people were more apt to say they’d be okay with going into an assisted living facility.

One of the challenges is families are providing care along with all their other tasks, including work and sometimes raising kids and various responsibilities, so they don’t always have as much time to offer as the older person would like.

Linda Draper thinks Nancy sometimes feels bored and she believes her mother-in-law is happiest around people closer to her own age. She gets that and said if her own time comes to need a caregiver, she hopes there are resources to put her in an assisted-living type community. “I would probably enjoy it because I’d be around a lot of people,” she added.