Number of US caregivers increases from 18 to 24 million

That is according to a paper by Wolff et al. (2025). They use 2011-2022 data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) linked to data from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC). Using these data, they find.

…the numbers of family caregivers providing help to older adults increased by nearly six million between 2011 and 2022, rising from 18.2 million to 24.1 million. Among older adults receiving care, network size was stable, at about two caregivers per older adult at both points in time.

We can decompose the number of caregivers based on whether or not the patient has dementia as follows:

Of the caregivers in 2022, 62.5% were female, 36.3% were aged <55 years. What is the relationship of the caregiver to the patient? Most–but not a majority–are the adult children of the patient.

Caregiving is most often a long-term relationship with most caregiving episodes spanning 4 years or more.

The paper has much more details on caregivers, their characteristics, their roles, and trends over time. You can read the full article here.

DATA DESCRIPTION

NHATS is a nationally representative survey of US adults ages sixty-five and older that draws on Medicare enrollment files for its sampling frame. Information is collected during in-person interviews about a wide range of characteristics relating to health and functioning. With sampling weights, NHATS is designed to produce nationally representative estimates of the older population. NSOC is administered to up to five relatives and unpaid helpers (hereafter referred to as family caregivers) of older adults receiving assistance with self-care, mobility, or household activities for health or functioning reasons. NSOC was administered by telephone in 2011 and by telephone and online in 2022. In each year, approximately 60 percent of those invited to respond participated; with sampling weights, NSOC represents family caregivers of beneficiaries ages sixty-five and older.