One in four of us is already caring for someone, and half of us will take our turn at some point. Together we pour an estimated $97 billion in unpaid labour into this every single year, and that labour is quietly holding up a care system our governments have stopped investing in.

When we talk about senior care in Ontario, we picture hospital beds and long-term care homes. But the front line is the kitchen table. The sandwich generation, most of them between 40 and 60, is raising children while looking after aging parents, and the squeeze hits the wallet before it hits anything else. Nearly half of caregivers report financial strain, and one in five spends more than $12,000 a year out of pocket. That money comes out of retirement savings folks assumed they would use after 65. We have sat with neighbours who describe that arithmetic with a tight chest and a tired laugh.

The deeper penalty lands when careers end early. One woman who left her federal job to care for her mother described realizing at 60 that more than a decade out of the workforce had hollowed out her Canada Pension Plan contributions. She was, in her own words, penalized for that lack of employment years. Her modest dream of boating trips and travel went out the window. That is not a personal failure, and we will not pretend it is. It is a structural one, and it lands disproportionately on women.

The economics are now quantified. Deloitte Canada estimates health-related barriers to work drained more than $100 billion from our economy in 2025, including $48.5 billion in lost labour income tied directly to unpaid caregiving. Meanwhile, more than three-quarters of care providers are considering leaving the profession over low wages and safety concerns. Every professional who quits pushes more work onto an unpaid family member, and every family member who steps back shrinks the tax base financing our health care. As the share of Ontarians over 65 climbs toward nearly 23 per cent by 2035, that cycle tightens.

Here is what most policy conversations miss: supporting the sandwich generation is not a side issue to senior care. It is senior care. When caregivers get respite services, mental health supports, and simplified tax credits, seniors get more stable care and fewer emergency rooms. When personal support workers earn wages that keep them in the profession, families stop burning out. Deloitte even modelled the upside, finding that cutting caregiving burdens by a quarter could recover more than $12 billion in annual economic gains.

We believe a province that works for everyone has to count the work nobody is paid for. So here is the question our community needs to keep asking: what would it take to treat care like the infrastructure it is, before it collapses? Bring your stories, your exhaustion, and your ideas to the conversation, in your community association and at community meetings. We need to hear them.

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This article was created using research from the cited references below, a human editor and an AI-assisted workflow.

References:
We're struggling: Caregivers are feeling the financial squeeze, report says
Poor health costs Canada $100 billion and clients may be suffering
Canada's economy is losing $100B a year to illness and caregiving: report