Caregiving Population
- More than 50 million people provide care for a chronically
ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given
year.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Informal Caregiving: Compassion in Action. Washington, DC: 1998, and National Family Caregivers Association, Random Sample Survey of Family Caregivers, Summer 2000, Unpublished
- The typical family caregiver is a 46-year-old woman caring
for her widowed mother who does not live with her. She is married
and employed. Approximately 60% of family caregivers are women.
Source: National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, Caregiving in the U.S., 2004.
- 1.4 million children ages 8 to 18 provide care for an adult
relative; 72% are caring for a parent or grandparent.
Fortunately, most are not the sole caregiver.
Source: National Alliance for Caregiving and the United Hospital Fund, Young Caregivers in the U.S., 2005.
- 30% of family caregivers caring for seniors are themselves
aged 65 or over; another 15% are between the ages of 45 to 54.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Characteristics of Long-term Care Users. Rockville: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2001.
- 17% of family caregivers are providing 40 hours of care a
week or more.
Source: National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, Caregiving in the U.S., 2004.
- The value of the services family caregivers provide for
"free" is estimated to be $306 billion a year. That is almost
twice as much as is actually spent on homecare and nursing home
services combined ($158 billion).
Source: Arno, Peter S., "Economic Value of Informal Caregiving," presented at the Care Coordination and the Caregiving Forum, Dept. of Veterans Affairs, NIH, Bethesda, MD, January 25-27, 2006.
- The need for family caregivers will increase in the years
ahead. People over 65 are expected to increase at a 2.3% rate,
but the number of family members available to care for them will
only increase at a 0.8% rate.
Source: Mack, Katherine and Thompson, Lee with Robert Friedland. Data Profiles, Family Caregivers of Older Persons: Adult Children. The Center on an Aging Society, Georgetown University, page 2, May 2001.
Reprinted from Statistics on Family Caregivers and Family Caregiving 2006 with permission of the National Family Caregivers Association, Kensington, MD, the nation’s only organization for all family caregivers.
1 800 896 3650
National Family Caregivers
Association.
