Caregiving is still mostly a woman's job and many women are putting their career and financial futures on hold as they juggle part-time caregiving and full-time job requirements. This is the reality reported in Caregiving in the U.S. 2009, the most comprehensive examination to date of caregiving in America. The sweeping study of the legions of people caring for adults, the elderly, and children with special needs reveals that 29% of the U.S. adult population, or 65.7 million people, are caregivers, including 31% of all households. These caregivers provide an average of 20 hours of care per week.
Caregiving in the U.S. 2009, which was funded by MetLife Foundation and conducted for the National Alliance for Caregiving in collaboration with AARP by Mathew Greenwald & Associates, is the result of interviews with 1,480 caregivers chosen at random. The study was designed to replicate similar studies conducted in 2004 and 1997 and includes, for the first time, a sampling of those caring for children as well as those caring for adults over the age of 18.
Among the findings: American caregivers are predominantly female (66%) and are an average of 48 years old. Most care for a relative (86%), most often a parent (36%). Seven in ten caregivers care for someone over age 50. One in seven caregivers provides care, over and above regular parenting, to a child with special needs (14%). Caregiving lasts an average of 4.6 years.
The study also revealed that both caregivers of adults and their care recipients are now older than their counterparts were five years ago. Among caregivers of adults (ages 18 or older), the average age of the caregiver rose from 46 to 49. The change can be attributed to a decline among younger caregivers (those under the age of 50) and a shift upward among caregivers age 50 to 64. Among caregivers of adults, the average care recipient's age increased from 67 to 69, mainly because of an increase in the percentage age 75 or older (from 43% to 51%).
The main reasons people need care are old age (12%), Alzheimer's disease (10%), mental/emotional illness (7%), cancer (7%), heart disease (5%) and stroke (5%). However, the list of illnesses/problems for which children need care is quite different. It is led by ADD/ADHD, autism, mental/emotional illness and developmental delay/mental retardation. Caregivers of children provide the most time-intensive care. Increasingly, the study reports, there is a use of prescription medication for adult care recipients.