A report published July 24 by career platform Zety, based on a June survey of 1,003 employed Gen X workers ages 46 to 61, found that 54% report stress and burnout tied to caregiving responsibilities, and 44% say caregiving is actively hurting their focus and productivity at work. Twenty-two percent spend more than 16 hours a week on caregiving on top of a full-time job, and 37% qualify as sandwich-generation caregivers, supporting both aging relatives and children at once.
The employer-support gap is the number that should worry HR and benefits teams most: 30% of Gen X caregivers say they receive little or no support from their employer, even as 40% report caregiving interrupts work for appointments or emergencies. The financial spillover is significant too: 52% say caregiving costs are cutting into their ability to save for retirement.
The original angle here is generational sequencing, not just workload. Millennial caregiving support programs, built around parental leave and childcare stipends, are the template most benefits stacks default to. Gen X’s load looks structurally different: split between aging parents and older children at once, running on predictable weekly hours rather than a defined leave event, and landing during peak earning years rather than early career. A benefits package built for that looks less like extended leave and more like flexible scheduling and elder-care referral services, categories most HRIS platforms still bucket under generic wellness. This echoes a broader shift where demographic pressure is increasingly the constraint HR leaders plan around, and compounds a problem where workers stay in jobs they would otherwise leave because they cannot afford to lose employer-tied benefits.
Source: Zety
