Family & Community

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving reported that more than 40% of family caregivers provided high-intensity care in 2025.

According to the 2024 American Time Use Survey, women averaged 2.34 hours per day in household activities versus 1.67 hours for men. Among adults living with children under 18, women averaged 1.79 hours per day of primary childcare versus 1

The World Happiness Report, using U.S. time-use data, found that among Americans who lived with other people, 18% ate all of their meals alone on the previous day in 2023, compared with 12% in 2003.

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving reported that many family caregivers perform complex medical or nursing tasks, but only 22% received training for those tasks in 2025.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s National Database of Childcare Prices reported that full-day care for one child in 2022 ranged from about $6,552 to $15,600 per year depending on the child’s age, provider type, and location. That represented

Administrative-burden research identifies three recurring costs imposed on people dealing with institutions: learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs.

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving reported that half of family caregivers said caregiving had a negative financial impact on them in 2025.

Among U.S. households with children age 13 or younger, 23.9% paid for childcare in 2024. Those paying households spent an average of $10,520 annually, about 5.6% of household income.

Research on shadow work documents the transfer of tasks once performed by paid workers—such as checkout, ticketing, booking, banking transactions, customer-service troubleshooting, and data entry—onto customers through self-service and digi

AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving reported that one in four family caregivers took on debt because of caregiving in 2025.