The Price Carents Pay: The Cost of Caring for a Ageing Parent

Section 1: The health toll

Your own health tends to come last.

These figures reflect what carents in our community describe regularly: the GP appointment cancelled because something came up, the feeling of exhaustion that becomes a background noise rather than a warning sign, the slow erosion of the energy that used to go towards yourself.

Carenting can make it harder to notice your own needs. The shift can be gradual, and by the time it registers, it may already have been going on for months.

The winter figure deserves its own attention. 84% of carents say they worry more about their parent's safety during the colder months. For many, that worry does not switch off. It sits alongside everything else, all the time.

Section 2: The financial picture

Caring costs money. Most people find that out as they go.

52% of carents have used personal savings to meet the cost of caring for an ageing parent.

14% have used credit cards. 11% have dipped into their pension funds. In total, six in ten carents have drawn on at least one financial resource to cover caring costs, whether or not they expected to.

The retirement picture is particularly stark. 59% of carents say they are more worried about how they will fund their retirement since they began caring. For 1 in 8, that concern has moved from worry to action: they have already started spending their pension.

• 59% are more worried about funding their retirement since becoming a carent
• 1 in 8 has already drawn down pension funds to meet caring costs
• 52% have used personal savings
• 49% are more worried about paying their bills

Nearly four in ten carents say they have hidden money worries from a partner or close family member since they began caring. Financial stress and isolation can go together. The worry tends not to disappear when it is not spoken about.

Section 3: Work

Most employers do not know what their carenting employees are managing.

Among carents in employment, the picture is consistent and clear.

• 83% have used annual leave to provide care for an ageing parent. For most of them, it was not a one-off. It is simply how the leave gets used.
• 76% have changed or reduced their working hours since becoming a carent. For many, that was not a choice they made with much support or flexibility from their employer.
• 53% have used sick days to provide care, not because they were unwell, but because there was no other option available to them.
• 59% of employed carents say they would like more support from their employer to help balance work and carenting.

Carenting is not a private matter that stays at home. It follows people into work. It shows up in their leave, their hours, and their capacity. Most workplaces have not yet built a response to that.

Section 4: Relationships and identity

Carenting does not only affect the person doing it.

58% of carents say carenting has put a strain on their relationship with their partner. Among those who have a partner, the figure rises to nearly three in four.

This dimension of carenting is rarely discussed. The conversations about carent burnout tend to focus on the individual. What the data shows is that the pressure extends outwards, into the closest relationships people have.

Loneliness is part of that picture too.

• 70% of carents feel lonely as a direct result of their caring responsibilities.
• 70% have lost contact with friends or social circles since becoming a carent. 
• 72% have lost their sense of self since becoming a carent

These figures describe something that tends to happen gradually, without a clear moment of change. 

Section 5: The moment it begins

Most carents did not notice a sudden shift. They noticed something small.

41% of carents say they first noticed a decline in their parent's wellbeing during a regular visit, not a crisis or an emergency, but a visit that was already in the diary.

For one in eight carents, that moment happened at a family occasion: Christmas, a birthday, a gathering. The kind of event where you see someone you have not seen in a while, and something is different.

• 41% first noticed decline during a regular visit
• 1 in 8 first noticed at a family occasion, including Christmas

By the time most carents find Carents, they are already carenting. The shift has already happened. The role has already started. What is often still missing is the language, the support, and the knowledge that they are not the only one navigating this.

Section 6: Why this matters

These are not surprising findings to anyone who has been through carenting.

What matters is that they are now documented, from a survey of 1,341 people, in their own words.

The cost of carenting is not one thing. It is financial and physical and emotional and relational, often all at once. It falls on people who did not apply for it, who do not always have a name for what they are doing, and who are rarely given the support that the scale of that cost warrants.

Methodology note

The Price Carents Pay survey was conducted in December 2025. 1,341 complete responses were collected from people who identified as carenting for, or having previously carented for, an ageing parent.

Respondents were asked about five areas: finances, employment, physical health, mental and emotional wellbeing, and relationships. Employment statistics are reported among respondents in employment (excluding those who selected "not applicable" as retired or self-employed). Percentage figures are rounded to the nearest whole number.

The survey was anonymous. No demographic data (age, gender, region) was collected.