The Working Caregiver: Balancing a Career and Caring for Someone You Love

She's in a meeting at 10 a.m. Her phone buzzes. It's her mother's assisted living community, again. She steps into the hallway, handles it in a whisper, and walks back in like nothing happened.

Nobody in that room knows she's already put in two hours of caregiving before she got to work. Nobody knows she'll put in three more tonight.

That's the working caregiver. And there's a good chance you are one, work beside one, or manage one.

How many people are we talking about?

More than you'd think. Research from Harvard Business School found that 73% of U.S. workers have some kind of caregiving responsibility. AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving report that 63 million U.S. adults — about one in four — are family caregivers, and seven in ten of them are employed (Caregiving in the US 2025).

They're caring for aging parents, spouses with chronic illness, children with special needs — sometimes all at once. Researchers writing in Palliative Medicine Reports found caregivers average about 20 hours of care per week. That's a part-time job on top of a full-time one.

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This isn't a short-term problem

Most workplace support is built for emergencies: a few days of leave, a week off after surgery. But caregiving rarely works that way.

In SHRM's 2025 research, 80% of working caregivers said their responsibilities had lasted more than a year. Yet only 35% of HR professionals said their organization handles long-term caregiving needs well. Three out of four focus on the short term.

And it's growing. Over the next five years, 18% of working caregivers expect to take on new or added elder-care duties. Another 13% of workers who aren't caregivers today expect to become one.

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What it costs the caregiver

The toll shows up in careers, paychecks and retirement accounts. SHRM found that 42% of working caregivers say caregiving has hurt their career growth. In just one year, 28% cut their hours, 21% scaled back their workload, and 14% changed jobs to find more flexibility.

The money hit lasts for decades. More than half (53%) say caregiving has hurt their finances. One in five has stopped contributing to retirement entirely, and 28% are contributing less.

There's an emotional cost, too. One in five working caregivers say they've been treated poorly at work because of their caregiving role. More than one in five say there's a stigma around it where they work. So many stay quiet — and struggle alone.

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What it costs employers

If you run a business or lead HR, this is already on your balance sheet. You just may not see it labeled.

SHRM reports caregivers miss an average of 1.2 unplanned workdays per month because their caregiving isn't supported. That adds up to about $17.5 billion in lost wages every month nationally. AARP puts the annual cost to U.S. employers from caregiving-related absenteeism and turnover at $44 billion.

Then there's turnover. When a skilled employee leaves because they can't balance work and care, you lose their experience, their relationships and the cost of replacing them. Workplace experts estimate replacing an employee can cost about twice what it costs to keep them.

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What actually helps

The good news: the research points to clear, practical steps. The Canadian Centre for Caregiving Excellence, in Maytree's Five Good Ideas series, lays out five that any employer can start on.

The Rosalynn Carter Institute's Working While Caring report adds a key recommendation: help employees navigate the resources available to them. That includes education on home care, long-term care and community services — and a navigation service to connect the dots.

That's where most caregivers get stuck. The help exists. Finding it, vetting it and knowing what to ask is the hard part.

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How Silver Streak helps

Silver Streak Senior Services exists to be that navigation layer. We bring trusted, vetted senior resources, planning tools and guidance together in one place, so caregivers aren't piecing it together at midnight on their phone.

For caregivers: you're not in this alone. Start with our directory and Education Center to find vetted help near you, and use The Just-In-Case Plan to get ahead of the next crisis.

For employers: Employers can offer Silver Streak to their employees as an employer-sponsored caregiving and family-care resource benefit, giving employees and HR one trusted place to start. It's a practical way to act on what SHRM, the Rosalynn Carter Institute and federal policy experts all recommend — without building a program from scratch.

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