In 2009, approximately one in four adults in America experienced the realities of caring for an adult family member, partner or friend who suffered with chronic conditions or disabilities.
A new report by AARP’s Public Policy Institute found the economic value of this unpaid care reached an estimated $450 billion in 2009—more than the total 2009 sales of Wal-Mart, America’s largest company, and more than the combined sales that year of the three largest publicly held auto companies (Toyota, Ford, Daimler).
The $450 billion is a 21 percent increase over the $375 billion that the study found in 2007.
The report finds that the “average” caregiver is a 49-year old woman who works outside of the home and spends nearly 20 hours per week providing unpaid care to her mother over the course of nearly five years.
Most are women
Almost two-thirds of family caregivers are women. More than eight in 10 are caring for a relative or friend age 50 or older. The nearly 62 million caregivers in the U.S. just about equal the combined population of California and Texas, the two largest and most populous of the lower 48 states.
“Most caregivers don’t think of what they’re doing as work,” said Susan Reinhard, Senior Vice President for Public Policy at AARP. “They think of it as what families do for each other. They don’t think of themselves as caregivers.”
The report also found that the care provided continues to increase in complexity. The impact of shorter hospital stays and advances in home-based medical technologies plays out in the health tasks that family caregivers often carry out, including bandaging and wound care, tube feedings, managing catheters, giving injections or operating medical equipment.
“Some of the things that family caregivers do would make a first-year nursing student shudder,” said Reinhard. “But that’s what it takes to provide care for people with chronic and sometimes acute medical conditions.”
This new level of care, which the report calls the “new normal,” also takes an increasing toll on the caregiver. The report found that those who take on this unpaid role to help loved ones remain in their own homes and communities risk stress, depression, physical health problems, social isolation, competing demands and financial hardship and thus, are vulnerable themselves.
