November is National Care Partner Month 2025

Thank You Care Partners!

Resources:

Care Partners Resource - Parkinson’s Foundation

Care Partner Resources - Davis Phinney Foundation

It’s estimated that ~2 billion people worldwide are performing unpaid informal care (for older adults, disabled persons, etc).
Among a group of 25 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD), more than 1 in 8 people aged 50+ (13%) provide informal care.
Globally—gender pattern: Up to 81% of caregivers of older persons are women in some high‐income country surveys.
The global economic valuation: For dementia care, the cost (medical + social + informal) exceeds US$1 trillion/year globally, with ~40% of that cost being informal care.

In the U.S., an estimated 53 million adults provided unpaid care to a child, parent, or other relative in 2020.

A more specific figure: about 37.1 million people (14% of the civilian population age 15+) provided unpaid elder-care (i.e., to someone aged 65+) in 2021-22.
According to the National Alliance for Caregiving / AARP data (from 2015), approximately 43.5 million Americans provided unpaid care to an adult or child during the previous 12 months.
On caregiving time: The average family caregiver spends about 25 hours per week on caregiving activities. 25% of caregivers provide over 40 hours/week.
On duration: One source reports the average caregiver role lasted about 4 years (with 24% providing care for more than 5 years, and 15% for 10+ years) in the 2015 data.
On demographics:
- Women make up the majority of caregivers. For example: 71% of “elder-care providers” (in the 37.1 m figure) were women.
- Among adults aged 45–64, about 24.4% reported providing regular care to a friend or family member in the past 30 days.
On economic value & burden: For example, in 2013 the value of unpaid caregiving was estimated at US $470 billion (in the U.S.) in one reported dataset.