Most working adults care for a child, an aging parent, or a family member with a health condition, yet most employers have little insight into who those caregivers are or what they need. The Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Gender & Work Initiative is partnering with the National Alliance for Caregiving and FamTech.org to build the first open enrollment module on caregiving, allowing employees to voluntarily and securely share their caregiving responsibilities during open enrollment, the annual period when workers choose their benefits.
The Caregiver Visibility @ Work project received a $2.5 million award from the Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Challenge, led by Aspen Digital, a program of the Aspen Institute, and supported by Pivotal, a group of social impact organizations founded by Melinda French Gates. It was one of 18 projects selected from nearly 900 applications.
“Employers don’t have good visibility into who their caregivers are,” said Colleen Stuart, co-director of the Gender & Work Initiative. “Most can only guess based on the benefits employees sign up for, and that can give a misleading picture of what employees actually need. Someone caring for an aging parent, for example, may not show up in benefits data at all.”
Instead, the new framework provides a simple, voluntary way to ask employees about their caregiving responsibilities during open enrollment. Those who choose to take part will answer questions about the kind of care they provide, such as childcare, elder care, or care for someone with a health condition. The goal is to give employers better information to support their workforce.
Nearly 40 million Americans, or about one in five workers, balance work and caregiving according to Stuart. She says that many employers offer caregiving-related benefits, but without knowing who their caregivers are, it’s hard to tell whether those programs are reaching the right people or meeting their needs.
“Many employees ‘cover’ their caregiving by hiding it at work because they fear being judged or worse, discriminated against,” said Stuart. “Women especially continue to experience the strongest career penalties from caregiving, including the well-known motherhood penalty, lower pay, stalled advancement, and negative assumptions about commitment.”
“Caregiving is not a niche issue; it is a widespread, structural reality shaping the careers of both women and men, but with uneven consequences,” said David Smith, co-director of the Gender & Work Initiative. “Making caregiving visible, valued, and supported helps break the cycle where women are penalized for caregiving, men are discouraged from sharing caregiving responsibilities, and workplaces continue to reward unrealistic, always-on models of work.”
The project brings together the National Alliance for Caregiving’s national research and advocacy, the Gender & Work Initiative’s expertise in workplace research and evaluation, and FamTech.org’s network of employers and care technology innovators.
According to Smith and Stuart, the lack of available data about employee caregivers, in addition to limited visibility into caregivers’ lives and needs, is a problem because it drives inequitable workplaces.
“Culture change starts with data and visibility. If caregiving responsibilities are measured and understood, organizations can design better benefits and reduce bias,” said Smith.
The findings could help employers strengthen or expand support such as childcare or elder care subsidies, manager training on supporting caregivers, flexible or remote work options, and paid family leave. Stuart and Smith say such changes benefit both workers and the bottom line.
“Caregiving-supportive benefits can improve retention, leadership, engagement, and ROI,” said Smith. “So, supporting caregivers is not just a fairness issue; it is a workplace performance issue and business imperative.”
“This is a pressing issue now because caregiving affects most of the workforce. At the same time, burnout, turnover, and demands for flexibility are all increasing,” Stuart said. “So, supporting caregivers is no longer a ‘nice to have’—it’s directly tied to retention, engagement, and equity.”
The pilot will launch during the 2027 open enrollment season with an initial cohort of employers. Interested employers can visit caregivervisibilityatwork.org to learn more.
