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Elder care is quietly draining employee productivity and savings

August 25, 2026
Elder care is quietly draining employee productivity and savings

More than half of employees between the ages of 40 and 60 are actively coordinating a parent’s care. According to data from a survey of 1,100 working adults conducted by the subscription-based legal services platform LegalShield, caregiving touches nearly every part of their lives. Most are in the active phase — coordinating a parent’s care, paperwork, and medical decisions — and nearly two-thirds spend six or more work hours a month on caregiving tasks during the workday. More than half say the emotional toll is the hardest part, ahead of financial cost.

Since 2022, elder care-related requests for legal assistance to LegalShield provider firms have more than doubled, according to the company, making it the number-one area of law across the network. Nearly half of LegalShield’s elder care callers are millennials and Gen Xers asking about powers of attorney, healthcare directives, conservatorships, wills, and estate planning.

Among LegalShield’s other findings:

  • More than half of survey respondents caring for a parent spent $5,000 or more of their own money on such care in the past year.
  • To cover those expenses, nearly 40% cut their own savings or retirement contributions, more than a third took on credit card debt, and more than a quarter drew from retirement accounts.
  • Nearly 1 in 4 has seriously considered leaving the workforce because of caregiving.
  • More than 20% turned down a promotion, and nearly 1 in 5 reduced their hours.

“People come to me when situations are already complicated, when a parent has been diagnosed with a severe illness, when no one has a power of attorney in place, when the family is trying to make decisions and has no legal authority to do so,” said Rebecca Carter, a LegalShield provider attorney and a member of the so-called “Sandwich Generation” herself. “Most of them are working full time. Most of them had no idea this was coming. And almost none of them had anywhere to turn until it was already a crisis.”

How elder care impacts employees at work

A companion survey of more than 1,000 human resources executives found broad recognition of this emerging challenge for their employees. Most said employee caregiving impacts absenteeism, productivity, retention, and engagement. Nearly three quarters estimate that at least one in five members of their workforce is managing elder care.

What’s more, only 37% of respondents believe their company’s current benefits meet elder care needs; in 17% of organizations, parent coverage has been explicitly requested by employees but is not currently offered.

“I have been handling HR issues for decades and I have never seen a workforce issue that is this personal, this expensive, and this invisible at the same time,” said Bill Thrush, a LegalShield provider attorney at Maryland-based Friedman, Framme & Thrush, P.A., whose firm also serves as its own de facto HR resource for staff navigating elder care. “Employees are not asking for much. They are asking for someone to help them figure out what to do next. That is a reasonable ask, and most employers just do not have an answer for it yet.”

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