Health & Well-Being

• Summary
• Access
• Acute Care
• Chronic Illness
• Coordinated Accessible Healthcare
• Disability
• Family Caregiving
• Functional Health Status
• Health Insurance
• Hospice
• In-home Services
• Long-term Care
• Mental Health Status
• Nursing Care
• Physical Health Status
• Rehabilitative Therapy
• Respite

Find Reports and Papers

Please feel free to use Older Dominion Partnership's resources under the terms of this site, and contact us with feedback and suggestions, and/or submit a study.

For a complete listing of studies and reports click here, or search by topic, keyword and/or date:

Source: -- Choose -- A Unilever Trip Management Report AARP AC Nielsen Homescan & Spectra Agelessons Aging Clinical and Experiemental Research American Hospital Association, First Consulting Group American Medical Association Ameriprise Boomer Insights Generation Group Business and Health Institute Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Charles Schwab & Age Wave Charles Schwab and Age Wave Corporation for National & Community Service Direct Service Workforce Resource Center Employee Benefit Research Institute Evercare Family Caregiver Alliance Fleishman Hillard Focalyst Genworth Financial Health Research and Educational Trust Institute of Medicine Journal of Health and Social Behavior Journal of Human Resources Mathematica Policy Research McKinsey Global Institute MetLife MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures National Alliance for Caregiving  National Institue on Aging Securities Industry Association (SIA) Research Reports Sun Life Financial The Brookings Institution The Conference Board, Charles Mitchell, Managing the Mature Workforce The Dartmouth Atlas Project The Gerontological Society of America The Health & Retirement Study The Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Research Center Trust for America's Health TV Land, a unit of Viacom Inc�s MTV Network University of Michigan Retirement Research Center Urban Institute

Topic: -- Choose -- Boomers Caregiving Economic Mobility Economy Encore Careers Finances Financial Security Generation Next Generations Geography Health Care Health Care Reform Long Term Care Retirement Volunteering Workforce

Keyword:

Year:

Health & Well-Being » Family Caregiving

Why It's Important

The monetary impact of caregiving on family members has been calculated in various studies, but the impact it has on in terms of emotional stress, personal sacrifice and physical strain compound the value of care delivery beyond what can be measured in financial loss. The Boomer demographic has married later and had fewer children than their parents (today’s seniors). These changes between generations will point to fewer caregivers for millions of aging Baby Boomers. The Boomer cohort also has far more women engaged in the workforce -- causing more changes to the family structure.

As the “sandwich” generation copes with caring for aging parents and caring for their own children, increasing flexibility from their employers will be paramount in allowing them to be able to do their jobs both as employees and as caregivers. Offering family leave in addition to that provided by the FMLA is a step in the right direction.

See Data By: Richmond MSA | Virginia | National

How Richmond Is Doing

Two in five area employers report offering some type of family leave time in addition to FMLA.

How Virginia Is Doing

• 22 percent of Boomers in Virginia are currently caregivers for a parent, stepparent or older relative (compared to 17 percent of the overall population) (ODP RESIDENT, 2008)
• 41 percent of employers offer Family Leave time beyond FMLA (ODP Business Leader, 2008)
• More than half of Boomers in Virginia either are current caregivers or have been within the past five years. (ODP RESIDENT, 2008)

 

 

How the U.S. Is Doing

• National Family Caregivers Association & Family Caregiver Alliance provides an estimated prevalence and economic value of caregiving by state.
• In 2004, there were an estimated 27 million caregivers (according to SIPP) and 30.7 million caregivers (according to NSFH). The average of these two estimates was used to arrive at a mid-range estimate of the number of caregivers nationally -- 28.8 million.

Estimated Pevalence and Economic Value of

Family Caregiving by State

State	Number of Caregivers 2004	Caregiving hours per year (millions)	Annual market value (millions of dollars)
Virginia (Ranked #12)	740,402	793	$7,868
United States	28,827,766	30,880	$306,333

(NFCA & FCA, ESTIMATED PREVALENCE AND ECONOMIC VALUE
OF FAMILY CAREGIVING BY STATE, 2006)

 

According to the 2007 Evercare and NAC study on the cost of family caregiving:

• Most (57%) of the respondents were caring for a parent or parent-in-law, and 21 percent were providing care for a spouse. The remainder were helping siblings (4%), grandparents (5%) other relatives or friends (13%).
• Two-thirds (67%) of the respondents reported they helped with ADLs, and 97 percent reported they helped with IADLs.
• The average number of hours spent in helping the care recipient was 35.4 hours a week, with a median response of 20 hours. Half (52%) had been providing care for three or more years and 32 percent had been providing care for more than five years.
• Nearly half of the respondents (45%) of this sample reported that the person they were helping lived with them and another 44 percent of the sample lived near the care recipient. One in ten caregivers (10%) reported that they lived more than an hour away from the person they were helping.

(EVERCARE NAC, STUDY OF FAMILY CAREGIVERS, 2007)

According to AARP’s Public Policy Institute report, Valuing the Invaluable: The Economic Value of Family Caregiving, 2008 Update:

• About 34 million family caregivers provided care at any given point in time, and about 52 million provided care at some time during the year.
• The estimated economic value of their unpaid contributions was approximately $375 billion in 2007, up from an estimated $350 billion in 2006.
• The economic value of caregiving exceeded total Medicaid long-term care (LTC) spending in all states, and was more than three times as high in 36 states.
• Compared with Medicaid home- and community-based service spending, the economic value of family caregiving was at least three times as high in all states, and more than ten times as high in 19 states.

(AARP, PPI VALUING THE INVALUABLE, 2008 UPDATE)

According to the AOA, A Profile of Older Americans: 2008

• About 11% (3.7 million) of older Medicare enrollees received personal care from a paid or unpaid source in 1999.
• Almost all community resident older persons with chronic disabilities receive either informal care (from family or friends) or formal care (from service provider agencies).
• Over 90%of these older persons with chronic disabilities received informal care and/or formal care; and about two thirds received only informal care.
• About 9% of this chronically disabled group received only formal services.

(AOA, PROFILE OF OLDER AMERICANS, 2008)

Data & Information Sources

AARP Public Policy Institute, Valuing the Invaluable: The Economic Value of Family Caregiving, 2008

http://www.aarp.org/research/housing-mobility/caregiving/i13_caregiving.html

Administration on Aging, Profile of Older Americans, 2008

http://www.aoa.gov/AoAroot/Aging_Statistics/Profile/2008/docs/2008profile.pdf

Evercare and National Alliance for Caregiving, Evercare and Study of Family Caregivers – What They Spend, What They Sacrifice, 2007

http://evercarehealthplans.com/pdf/evercare_caregiver_study.pdf

Family Caregiver Alliance

http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/home.jsp

Federal Interagency Forum on Aging Related Statistics

http://www.agingstats.gov/agingstatsdotnet/main_site/default.aspx

National Family Caregivers Association and Family Caregivers Alliance, Hours and Economic Value of Family Caregiving, Updated State-by-State Analysis of 2004 National Estimates by Peter S. Arno, PhD. Kensington, MD, 2006

http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content/pdfs/State_Caregiving_Data_Arno_20061107.pdf

National Family Caregiver Association

http://www.thefamilycaregiver.org/

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/