Catherwood LibraryILR School

Caring for aging relatives or spouses can be emotionally and physically taxing on workers but many companies have no policies in place to assist their care-giving employees. The assistance is becoming increasingly important as the population ages—the National Council on Aging estimates that by 2040, 40% of the workforce may be caring for older parents. Companies may not be providing support simply because they are unaware of how many workers are caregivers—the Human Resource Institute and Boomerang, a private company, conducted a survey of 150 large employers and found that most companies don’t have accurate data on the number of caregivers among their employees.