They’re changing nappies at one end of the age spectrum and attending specialist appointments at the other. They’re booking childcare and organising aged care assessments—sometimes on the same day. And they’re doing it all while trying to hold down a job.
Welcome to The Care Squeeze—a growing crisis that’s quietly reshaping Australian family life.
The reality is now getting national attention thanks to the ABC’s recent series, The Care Squeeze, which shines a spotlight on the hidden cost of unpaid care and the people living it every day.
According to the ABC analysis, around 1.5 million Australians are now part of what’s known as the sandwich generation — those caring for both their children and ageing parents at the same time. The emotional, financial and logistical toll is immense, and as the population ages, it’s only getting worse.
While Australia’s aged care and childcare systems struggle under staffing shortages, escalating costs and regulatory reform, it’s these middle-aged carers—most of them women—who are filling the gaps. Often unpaid, usually exhausted, and largely unsupported.
Episodes of The Care Squeeze revealed real-life stories: families using annual leave to transport parents to medical appointments, people reducing work hours or declining promotions to manage care, and caregivers dipping into savings just to afford temporary respite. This invisible workforce is the glue in a system that’s quietly cracking.
The care squeeze is not gender-neutral. Women are overwhelmingly the ones who take on these dual responsibilities, at significant personal and professional cost.
As The Care Squeeze highlighted, carers in this group are more likely to experience burnout, reduced income, and long-term career disruption. And it’s not just anecdotal: Treasury modelling shows that supporting unpaid carers to remain in the workforce could add tens of billions to the economy — yet policies remain fragmented.
This isn’t just a personal juggling act — it’s a structural failure. Australia’s care systems weren’t designed for multi-generational dependency under one roof. Childcare is expensive and hard to access. Home care is waitlisted. Residential care is often viewed as a last resort rather than an integral part of a continuum of support.
We need to stop treating carers as collateral damage in an overstretched system. Paid carer leave, more accessible respite, affordable childcare, and flexible workplace policies are no longer “nice to have” — they’re essential infrastructure.
At its core, the care squeeze is a story about time, identity, and invisible labour. But it’s also a wake-up call: the way we think about ageing, parenting, and working must evolve.
A society that values care must also support its carers — not just with praise, but with policy. Until that happens, 1.5 million Australians will keep doing the impossible — juggling care for the people who raised them, and the little people they’re raising in turn.
Because love may be infinite, but time and energy are not.
