Women Pay the Hidden Health and Financial Price of Caregiving, APFM Study Finds

National data from A Place for Mom reveals the quiet but profound toll caregiving takes on women’s health, careers, relationships, and long-term financial security

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--During Women’s History Month, a time to honor women’s impact on families and communities, A Place for Mom (APFM), the leading platform guiding families through every stage of the aging journey, today released Women and Caregiving: The Hidden Health, Work, and Financial Effects of Unpaid Care in Midlife. The report sheds light on a reality that is often overlooked: millions of women are quietly carrying the emotional and logistical weight of caregiving during the most demanding years of their lives, with lasting consequences for their health, careers, and financial security.

Women’s History Month is a moment to recognize women’s contributions across caregiving and our society at large, but also a crucial time to emphasize the lack of structural support they are given for these commitments. Women’s unpaid labor continues to underpin families and care systems across the country. Drawing on proprietary survey data from 1,029 unpaid caregivers nationwide, the Women and Caregiving report highlights an alarming structural reality: the U.S. senior care system depends on family caregivers, and women carry the majority of that responsibility, accounting for 61% of unpaid caregivers nationally.

“Our research shows that women are sacrificing their own health and career growth out of love and a sense of responsibility for their families,” said Tatyana Zlotsky, CEO of A Place for Mom. “The real issue is that our healthcare systems and workplaces are not designed with caregivers in mind. We have to act with urgency to support women caregivers by recognizing the disparity and building solutions that truly support them, emotionally, professionally, and financially.”

A Midlife Caregiving Crisis

This report finds that caregiving most often enters women’s lives during midlife, when work and parenting obligations are already at their height.

• The average age of women caregivers is 52, and nearly 80% of women caring for a spouse or older relative are between 40 and 60 years old.
• 46% of women caregivers are simultaneously caring for children or grandchildren under 18, and 55% are employed themselves, compressing professional responsibilities, parenting, and elder care into the same stage of life.
• Women (20%) are also more likely than men (15%) to be caring for a spouse, a role that often means providing care around the clock, with fewer natural breaks and limited emotional reprieve. Caregivers supporting a spouse provide an average of 27.3 hours of care per week, compared with the overall caregiving average of 22.8 hours.

Capability Doesn’t Cancel the Cost

While women report fewer difficulties navigating care systems and greater confidence in their caregiving abilities, that confidence does not shield them from deeper emotional and physical strain.

• 48% say they are “definitely able” to meet their loved one’s needs, compared with 43% of men.
• Women are more often exposed to their care recipients’ distress, more likely to perceive it as distress, or both. These negative emotional states commonly include frustration (50% vs. 39% of men) and anger (24% vs. 17% of men).
• Women are also less likely to say caregiving improved their relationship with the person they care for: 56% of women report improvement, compared with nearly 70% of men.
• Nearly one-third of women caregivers say caregiving has negatively affected their physical health, and more than half (53%) report difficulty sleeping at least once a week, compared with 47% of men.
• Nearly twice as many women as men report devoting little to no time to self-care in a typical month (29% vs. 15%). Regular exercise is reported by 49% of women caregivers, compared with 63% of men.

Career Disruption & Financial Risk

While caregiving frequently disrupts paid work for both genders, the professional and financial trade-offs widen pre-existing inequities for women caregivers as they often start with lower household income and experience more employment disruptions than male caregivers – often reducing work hours, stepping away from advancement opportunities, or leaving the workforce entirely.

• One in four women (25%) say caregiving worsened their career or employment.
• On average, women caregivers report losing 33% of total household income, a loss that compounds existing pay inequities and can ripple into retirement savings, long-term stability, and generational wealth. The average annual self-reported household income for women caregivers is $62,302, compared to $77,273 in households with male caregivers.
• Household and family structure also plays an important role in these issues. About half of women caregivers report being single, divorced, separated, or widowed, further limiting access to additional support.

As the nation recognizes Women’s History Month, this report serves as both acknowledgment and call to action. For generations, women have quietly sustained families, communities, and care systems. Supporting caregivers today, through workplace flexibility, financial transparency, and earlier planning, is not just a family issue. It is an economic and public health imperative.

“A Place for Mom stands with caregivers and our role is to shed light on the caregiving crisis many face,” added Zlotsky. “Caregivers deserve support, tools, and transparency that enable them to provide the best care to their loved ones and recognize the value of their role as caregivers.”

Methodology
This article draws on data from A Place for Mom’s 2025 national caregiver survey, alongside recent population-level caregiving research and peer-reviewed studies. The A Place for Mom survey was conducted by Morning Light Strategy in September 2025 as an online quantitative study. It included feedback from 1,029 nonprofessional caregivers between the ages of 40 and 75 who are providing unpaid care to adults age 55 and older across the United States. Among the caregivers surveyed, 510 identified as women and 518 as men. Findings in this report focus on gender differences to better understand how caregiving experiences and outcomes differ for women and men once caregiving is underway. Comparisons by gender describe differences in reported experience and outcomes and should not be interpreted as evidence of innate caregiving ability.

About A Place for Mom
A Place for Mom is the leading platform that guides families through every stage of the aging journey. We simplify the search for senior care by offering free, personalized support—and when families are ready, we refer them to partners from our network of over 15,000 senior living communities and home care agencies. Our mission is to guide caregivers and their loved ones to a confident place, so families can focus on what matters most: their love for each other. A Place for Mom: Where love finds its place. For more information, please visit aplaceformom.com.