National Family Caregivers Month

National Family Caregivers Month is celebrated every November. A report recently released by the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers (RCI) found that one in five full-time workers is a caregiver, providing care on a regular basis for a family member or friend who is aging, has a serious illness, or has a disability.  

Caregivers who work experience conflicts between competing responsibilities. Decades of research document the significant emotional, physical, and financial toll caregiving takes.   

One 2016 study found that income-related losses sustained by family caregivers ages 50 and older who leave the workforce to care for a parent are $303,880, on average, in lost income and benefits over a caregiver's lifetime.   

These negative effects have been exacerbated during the COVID-9 pandemic. A report from the University of Pittsburgh shows that caregivers are more likely than non-caregivers to be experiencing social isolation, anxiety and depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, financial hardship, and food insecurity.  

The RCI report shows that at some point in time over the course of caring for their loved one, 44 percent of family caregivers who are employed full-time said they had to cut back their work to part-time because of their caring responsibilities, and roughly 20 percent said they had to quit working altogether. As a result, a tremendous amount of talent, loyalty, and institutional knowledge leaves the workforce every day - either temporarily or full time.   

Coordinated support services can reduce caregiver depression, anxiety, and stress, and enable them to provide care longer, which avoids or delays the need for costly institutional care. The benefits employed family caregivers report using most or say they would have used if available are benefits not being offered by most employers: 

• Flexible scheduling 
• Remote work or telework 
• Reducing hours from full-time to part-time 
• Job sharing/reduced workload 
• Specialized caregiver services  

The pandemic has upended the ways we work, even if we have not yet arrived at what a post-pandemic workplace will look like. Headlines such as these abound:  "5 Ways COVID-19 has Changed the Workplace;" "COVID Killed the Traditional Workplace;" "The Future of Work After COVID-19."

Perhaps some of the benefits that employed family caregivers most need are to be found within the silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic.