Understanding the Care Landscape

Caring is a universal experience that impacts individuals, families, workplaces and communities around the world. This resource explores commonly used terminology alongside research, data and insights from Embracing Carers® to support greater understanding of carers and their experiences.

Key Terms & Definitions

Activities of Daily Living (ADLs)

Everyday tasks related to personal care usually performed for oneself in the course of a normal day, including bathing, dressing, grooming, eating, walking, taking medications and other personal care activities.

Carer / Caregiver

A person providing continuous physical, emotional and practical support to someone who cannot fully care for themselves due to age, illness, injury or disability. Terminology varies globally, with carer commonly used in the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, while caregiver is more frequently used in North America.

Family (Informal) Carer

Individuals, often family members or friends, who provide regular assistance and support to an older person or an individual with a chronic or disabling condition outside of formal employment. These individuals may be primary or secondary carers and live with, or separately from, the person receiving care.

Formal Carer

A provider associated with a formal service system, whether a paid worker or a volunteer.

Sandwich Carer

An individual whose primary responsibility includes caring for dependent children and elderly relatives, oftentimes while also working outside the home. Sandwich caring is most common during early and middle adulthood, when adults are also balancing their own health, aging, career and financial well-being.

Long-Term Care (LTC)

A combination of medical, personal and social services and support designed to help people who have disabilities or chronic care needs. Services may be provided in the person’s home, in the community, in assisted living facilities or in nursing homes.

Balancing Work and Caring

Unpaid caring is one of the defining social and economic realities of our time, with demand increasing amidst demographic shifts. Carers quietly sustain health systems that could not function without them.

In fact, there are more than 63 million carers globally.¹ Of those:

67%

of carers are the primary unpaid carers for a household member.²

72%

of employed carers concerned they will have to work full time remotely while also caregiving for the foreseeable future.²

Women and Caring

In order to uncover what challenges carers face around the world, Embracing Carers^® has conducted a multi-national survey to determine the unmet needs of carers and the impact that caring for others has on their own health and well-being. Check our findings here.

DOWNLOAD THE GLOBAL CARER SURVEY

89%

of carers put the needs of the person they are caring for above their own.²

71%

are concerned that they will not be able to afford to provide proper care.²

61%

of informal carers are women.³

the amount of minutes women spend per day on unpaid care work – more than double that of men.³

These numbers are not merely statistics: they represent the daily reality of millions of people around the world, often without recognition, financial support or time to look after themselves. Understanding the full picture is the first step towards changing it.

What Matters Most to Carers

Embracing Carers^® developed and issued the 2017 Carer Report, Embracing the Critical Role of Carers Around the World, which captures the results of our international carer survey and outlines key calls to action for supporting and recognising carers around the world.

DOWNLOAD THE WHITE PAPER

References

1. Carers Worldwide. Global Carers Statistics. June 4, 2024.

2. Merck. Embracing Carers Initiative. Carer Well-Being Index. Sept. 3-Oct. 27, 2020.

3. OECD. Health at a Glance 2025. November 13, 2025.