The caregiving workforce refers to the paid and unpaid individuals who provide health, personal care, supervision, social support, and related services to individuals who require assistance due to age, disability, illness, or developmental needs. This workforce spans the lifespan and includes workers serving children, individuals with disabilities, chronically ill individuals, and older adults.

The caregiving workforce includes direct care workers (such as home health aides, personal care aides, and direct support professionals), licensed health professionals (including nurses and therapists), social workers, case managers, care coordinators, and family caregivers. Services are delivered across diverse settings, including private homes, childcare centers, community-based organizations, healthcare facilities, long-term care settings, and residential programs.

Discussions about the caregiving workforce in the U.S. trace back to the emergence of modern long-term care systems and labor policy debates in the 20th century. The term gained broader economic and social recognition in the late 20th and early 21st centuries alongside research on the “care economy” — a framing that highlights the indispensable labor of caregivers, its contribution to the broader economy, and the disparities in pay, training, and support experienced by many in these roles. This framing has shaped policy conversations about labor rights, workforce development, and social safety nets.

In the U.S. today:

• Family and unpaid caregivers: An estimated 63 million Americans are family caregivers — nearly one in four adults — providing care for children, adults with disabilities, or older adults, a figure that has increased by roughly 45% over the past decade. About 11 million of these caregivers receive some form of compensation through Medicaid, VA, or state programs.
• Direct care workers: The paid caregiving workforce — often described in research as the direct care workforce — includes roughly 5.4 million workers such as home care workers, residential care aides, and nursing assistants, and projections suggest significant growth in demand for these roles in coming years.
• Workforce pressures: Nearly half of direct care workers rely on public assistance due in part to low wages, and job openings in direct care are projected to be very high over the next decade as demand rises with the aging population.

In policy and economic discussions, the caregiving workforce is often associated with the broader “care economy,” reflecting its central role in supporting labor force participation, economic stability, and community well-being. Challenges facing this workforce include labor shortages, low wages in many direct-care occupations, high turnover, inconsistent training and credential requirements, and uneven access to benefits and career advancement pathways.

The eldercare workforce, a subset of the caregiving workforce, defined specifically by its focus on serving older adults, and other subsets include the childcare workforce and the disability services workforce.

See: Eldercare Workforce | Learn & Work Ecosystem Library