The Current State of Adolescent and Young Adult Family Caregivers and Its Implications for Policy

Abstract

Adolescents and young adults who provide care for family members report doing housework more often and having lower life satisfaction levels than their non-caregiving counterparts. The majority of adolescent and young adult family caregivers are depressed, with half reporting having difficulties with their studies, careers, or planning for the future due to caregiving. Among them, difficulties were greater for primary caregivers and those with long caregiving hours. Despite this, these family caregivers wanted to spend on average 14.3 hours a week caring for their family in need of care, and they reported that caring for their family was very important to them. Given their actual caregiving hours of 21.6 hours per week, there is a need to relieve them of their excessive caregiving burden while still allowing them to live with their families in the community.