Caregiving responsibilities are becoming one of the biggest workforce challenges facing employers today.
As populations age and working lives become longer, more employees are balancing their jobs with caring for children, ageing parents or relatives with disabilities. This shift is reshaping expectations around flexibility, wellbeing and workplace support.
The World Economic Forum estimates unpaid care work to be worth US$11 trillion globally: around 9% of global GDP.
At the same time, support for caregivers is becoming a key differentiator for candidates evaluating employers, directly affecting talent attraction, retention, and burnout levels.
What are the main caregiving pressures facing the workforce?
Childcare remains one of the key responsibilities people juggle alongside work. But increasingly, employees are also supporting ageing parents and relatives with disabilities.
Each kind of caregiving comes with different pressures. Childcare often follows school schedules and the unpredictability of child illness. Eldercare and disability care, meanwhile, can involve sudden emergencies and significant emotional strain that frequently conflict with traditional work structures.
Why is caregiving becoming a workforce issue?
Demographic change has transformed the reality of caregiving. In many countries, smaller families, longer life expectancy and later parenthood mean that working-age adults increasingly find themselves caring for both children and ageing parents at the same time, a phenomenon often referred to as the “sandwich generation”.
In OECD countries, fertility rates have more than halved since the 1960s, while life expectancy has increased by over a decade. At the same time, the number of people over 65 for every 100 working-age adults is expected to continue rising sharply over the coming decades.
In other words, there are more people needing care and fewer adults available to provide it, while also remaining active in the workforce.
Who bears the brunt of increasing caregiving responsibilities?
Women continue to carry most unpaid caregiving responsibilities. According to the International Labour Organization, 76% of all unpaid care work is performed by women. In the EU, women spend 1.9 more hours than men on unpaid caregiving daily, which adds up to 28.5 days per year.
These pressures continue to reinforce structural inequalities at work, particularly for women. Our 2025 Global Candidate Survey found that women are 40% more likely than men to experience gender-based discrimination or microaggression at work, while 14% report discrimination related to pregnancy or motherhood.
How is caregiving changing workforce needs?
Caregiving is not a question of reduced ambition, but of support.
Our 2025 Global Candidate Survey shows that, contrary to popular belief, parents remain just as ambitious as non-parents when it comes to pay, career growth and professional development.
In some cases, they are even more likely to seek new challenges.
What often becomes difficult is fitting caregiving responsibilities into workplace cultures that continue to reward constant availability, physical presence and rigid working patterns.
As a result, flexibility is becoming one of the most important expectations employees have from employers.
Why should companies support caregivers?
There is a clear business case for supporting caregivers. It improves retention, productivity, and workplace inclusion. Supporting caregivers can help companies develop resilience in an age of talent shortages and declining working-age populations – and those who don’t pay attention risk losing valuable employees and falling behind in the talent attraction race.
Childcare support remains a key bonus for candidates evaluating employers. According to our 2025 Global Candidate Survey, one in four job candidates cited it as a key differentiator. Many mothers report that childcare costs would consume their entire salary, making employment financially unsustainable.
What support do caregivers want from employers?
Flexible working policies remain the top priority. Flexible hours, remote working and additional paid time off are among the strongest drivers influencing job choices.
Yet many organisations still fall short. Only 33% offer additional paid leave linked to caregiving responsibilities, while just 21% provide childcare benefits or wider family support policies.
Beyond policies, companies also need cultural change: empathetic leadership, greater awareness around caregiving realities and workplace environments where employees feel supported rather than penalised.
Discover More than Work
Care is only one of the major crossroads explored in More than Work. Through research, insights and expert perspectives, the project examines the forces reshaping work and what organisations can do to build a more sustainable, inclusive and human-centred future of work.