How Much Productivity Employers Lose When Employees Care for an Aging Parent
A peer-reviewed study of caregivers to older adults puts the loss at about $5,600 a year per employed caregiver, or $49.1 billion across the US, and most of it comes from people working while distracted, not from missed days. Lost time from presenteeism was about 3.5 times the time lost to absence. That is why the cost rarely shows up in an attendance report.
By Brian Fluhr
If you run Total Rewards, you have probably seen a version of this: a strong performer who is still showing up, still answering email, and is quietly half somewhere else. Her father had a fall last month. She has not mentioned it. This post puts numbers on that pattern so you can make the case internally.
This is part of our series on The Employer Caregiver Crisis.
The numbers, by source
Per-employee cost: about $5,600 a year
Researchers using national survey data on caregivers to older adults found:
- About 1 in 4 employed caregivers (23.3%) reported caregiving-related absenteeism or presenteeism in the past month.
- Among those affected, caregiving reduced work productivity by about one third (34% of work time lost).
- Annualized across all employed caregivers, the loss was about $5,600 per employee: roughly $1,515 from absence and $4,056 from reduced performance while at work.
- In aggregate, about $49.1 billion a year.
Source: Caregiving-Related Work Productivity Loss among Employed Family and other Unpaid Caregivers of Older Adults (PubMed Central). The data are from 2015, and the authors note earlier estimates were lower because they left out presenteeism.
Missed days: 6.6 a year
Gallup's survey of 2,805 working caregivers found they missed an average of 6.6 workdays a year because of caregiving, and 30% missed six or more. Gallup put the absenteeism cost at $25.2 billion a year for full-time caregivers alone (Gallup). This is older data (2011) and counts absence only, which is why it runs lower than the study above.
What employees and employers see
- More than 80% of employees with caregiving responsibilities said it affected their productivity, while only 24% of employers said caregiving influenced performance (Harvard Business School, The Caring Company).
- 32% of employees had left a job during their career because of caregiving, and a third of those who left cited caring for an elder with daily living needs (same source).
- 53% of employees have missed work due to caregiving challenges and 48% report lower productivity from finding or managing care (Care.com 2026 Future of Benefits Report).
- Half of working caregivers report work disruptions such as going in late, leaving early or taking time off (Caregiving in the US 2025: Working While Caregiving).
Why presenteeism is the bigger cost
An employee who misses a day leaves a record. An employee who spends forty minutes on hold with a pharmacy, then an hour rereading a text from her brother about Mom's stairs, leaves no record at all. The research says that second pattern costs you more than three times as much as the first.
Most of that distraction is not about medical care. It is about the plan. Who is checking on Dad this week. Whether the bathroom is safe. Where the medicine list is. Which sibling said they would call. When the plan lives in one person's head, it follows her to every meeting.
What a benefit can realistically change
Gallup found that caregiver supports were each associated with fewer missed days, and estimated that broader adoption could cut caregiving absenteeism costs by about 23% (Gallup Business Journal). No single benefit closes the gap. The useful question is which part of the load each benefit takes off the employee's desk.
- Flexible time and leave make the hours visible and legitimate.
- An EAP helps the employee carry the stress.
- Care navigation from providers such as Cariloop, Wellthy and Homethrive takes research and paperwork off the employee once care needs are clear.
- A home-focused benefit such as SeniorThrive goes past the EAP and helps at the parent's home itself, before care is needed.
Where SeniorThrive fits
SeniorThrive goes after the background worry that drives presenteeism: is the house safe, does everyone know the plan, will I hear if something is off.
- A Room Safety Check turns "I'm worried about Mom's bathroom" into a short, ranked list of fixes and a Home Safety Score. Falls are the leading cause of injury for adults 65 and older, and about 1 in 4 report a fall each year (CDC).
- Circle puts the parent and family on one plan, so the employee stops being the switchboard.
- The Emergency Card and My Daily Check-In are free.
- Morning Peace of Mind. She sets a time and chooses who to tell. If she has not checked in by then, they get a gentle heads-up in the app and on their phone or computer. It is not an emergency alert.
Your team gets an exported PDF with counts only, never a household, and anything under 5 shows as "Fewer than 5." More at SeniorThrive for Employers.
How to use these numbers internally
- Estimate your exposure. Multiply your headcount by the share of employed caregivers in your workforce data, or use the 7 in 10 working-age caregiver employment rate from AARP and NAC as context. Apply the $5,600 figure to the affected group and label it an estimate from 2015 data.
- Lead with presenteeism. Attendance data undercounts the problem. Say so up front.
- Run a care census. HBS found 52% of employers do not track employee caregiving at all (HBS, The Caring Company). A short anonymous survey fixes that.
- Map benefits to stages. Before care, active care, crisis. Fund the gap.
To see how a home-focused benefit sits beside your EAP and care navigation, visit SeniorThrive for Employers.
Sources
- Caregiving-Related Work Productivity Loss among Employed Family and other Unpaid Caregivers of Older Adults (PMC): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9922792/
- Gallup, Caregiving Costs U.S. Economy $25.2 Billion in Lost Productivity (2011): https://news.gallup.com/poll/148670/caregiving-costs-economy-billion-lost-productivity.aspx
- Gallup Business Journal, The Cost of Caregiving to the U.S. Economy: https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/151049/cost-caregiving-economy.aspx
- Harvard Business School, The Caring Company (Fuller and Raman, 2019): https://www.hbs.edu/managing-the-future-of-work/research/the-caring-company
- Care.com, 2026 Future of Benefits Report: https://www.care.com/about/press/new-care-com-research-reveals-a-critical-visibility-gap-in-a-modern-workforce-that-runs-on-caregiving/
- Caregiving in the US 2025, Working While Caregiving: https://www.caregivingintheus.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/NAC_CGUS25_Working-While-Caregiving.pdf
- CDC, Older Adult Falls Data: https://www.cdc.gov/falls/data-research/index.html
