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Workforce burdened with eldercare
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
The population is aging, more retirees are moving to South Carolina and businesses need to prepare for dramatically changing demographics.
That message was made clear last month in an Older Worker Forum sponsored by AARP, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce.
It is also the focus of the Lt. Governor’s Office on Aging. Deputy Director Frank Adams said there are roughly 650,000 South Carolinians over the age of 60 and that 10,000 more people turn 65 in the state every year.
“Our 650,000 seniors are going to be 1.3 million by 2020,” Adams said. “We spend $5 billion in the state annually on medical care for seniors. We are the fifth largest state in terms of growth of seniors migrating to us. Why? Because it’s a great place to live. The climate’s great, you are halfway to anywhere you want to be on the Eastern Seaboard, and they’re flocking here.”
Between 1990 and 2000, South Carolina had the highest percentage of growth of all Southeastern states for people aged 60 and older at 22.3%. Top destinations for these new residents were Horry County, Beaufort County, Lexington County, Charleston County and Aiken County.
The influx of older residents combined with aging baby boomers who will soon retire presents a number of challenges to businesses.
“How are employers going to deal with this as baby boomers move out? They’ll leave behind 14 million jobs,’’ Adams said.
‘Sandwiched’
Those still working are often faced with caring for aging parents, which adds another dynamic to the workplace. Middle-aged workers who are caring not only for their children but for their parents have been labeled the “sandwich generation.”
“Many times you have a worker who wants to work, but the emotional and time demands of the relative is enough that they throw their hands up and quit work to take care of that person,” Adams said. “Then they’re off-track to provide their own health insurance and to provide for their own retirement. I think it is an emerging issue and I think it is almost going to be what childcare was in the 1960s and ’70s.”
The news isn’t all bad, however. While baby boomers may leave their careers to become full-time caregivers for their parents, many want to work part-time or find new careers that better fit their needs.
“Our senior population is going to go back to work,” Adams said. “But the other thing is, these workers who are sandwiched will approach their employer and say I need more time off. The whole issue of the senior boom is going to be a business opportunity for some businesses, and for others it will be a caregiving issue and dilemma.
“I think you will see a lot of business people creatively solving it so they can retain workers. We know we can’t possibly pay for all the long-term care that’s on the horizon.”
Challenge of healthcare
Tiffany Glisson, director of the family caregiver advocacy program for the Trident Area Agency on Aging, said Medicaid is the only state program that pays for long-term care. Because it is an income-based program, many people don’t qualify.
“A lot of the people who are aging now weren’t thinking about long-term care insurance back when they could afford to get it,” Glisson said. “Many of them didn’t think they’d be living as long as people are living now.”
Jim Gray of Jim Gray Consultants LLC said retiring baby boomers will leave a huge talent void. At the same time, it will open up a pool of highly skilled, albeit older, workers who may want to enter new jobs.
“The challenge to the business sector is, do we rethink our paradigms in recruiting and how do we go after that population, realizing these are seasoned people?” Gray said. “One of the challenges will be the impact of the cost of health care to the employer.
“While we cannot discriminate on age, if the employer hires an older workforce, it may have an extensive impact on the cost of their health insurance. It may also require a more flexible work schedule for needs like eldercare.”
Providing ‘eldercare’
Entrepreneurs may also find opportunity for new business development as the population ages.
Mary Peters, founder of Care For Life, a local geriatric care and management service, started her business 11 years ago after researching states like Florida with growing retirement populations.
“I had been very close to my grandparents and they had stayed at home to the very end,” Peters said. “Looking back, I thought that provided so much for them, for their resilience and health care and well-being.”
Care For Life provides assistance in planning for aging as well as providing trained medical staff to assist seniors with daily needs at home.
The company’s marketing director, Marsha Clayman, said geriatric care management has become a buzz word.
“It’s a pretty new field; it has come into focus in the past 10 years,” Clayman said. “As more adult children become long-distance caregivers, they’re going to rely on geriatric care managers. Baby boomers right now are going to average 18 years of taking care of an aging loved one. Within the next five years, 37 percent of us will be more concerned about eldercare than the care of a child.”
Business planning
Care For Life has already been incorporated into employee services offered by a local bank.
“About 10 years ago, we felt (eldercare) was going to be an issue. Everything you were reading said the baby boomers were going to start retiring about 1997,” said Jerry Gazes, First Federal Bank’s senior vice president, human resources.
Gazes said the bank had a long-term, strategic plan to help employees who may need to provide eldercare for family members in the future, but couldn’t find a local eldercare provider at the time.
About two years ago, employees started coming to him with caregiving issues and it was about that time that Gazes learned about Care For Life. The bank negotiated a monthly retainer fee with the company, which helps offset some of the cost of eldercare for the bank’s employees.
Employees must pay for the bulk of the company’s services themselves or through insurance, but Care For Life takes on the burden of daily responsibilities so that workers can concentrate on their jobs.
“It has already paid the dividends,” Gazes said of the program. “Things were just starting to pop up. Employees had elderly parents. They had to go home and fix lunch or give shots and what kind of impact would that have on their jobs?”
Assistance available
Many businesses and their employees may be unaware of the number of programs available to assist families with eldercare issues.
The Alzheimers' Association has a grant program for those who need monetary assistance with caregiving.
“It’s $500 a year, which isn’t a lot, but the recipients of this grant have found it an absolute godsend. People are just desperate to get a week off,” said Fran Emerson, program coordinator of the local chapter of the Alzheimers'’ Association.
Emerson said 75% of people with Alzheimers'’ are being cared for in their home by a family member.
“That’s huge if you think about the 60,000 people in South Carolina with Alzheimers'’ disease,” Emerson said.
Elinor Ginzler, a long-term care expert with AARP, said businesses lose between $12 million and $29 million in productivity annually because of caregiving, either through absenteeism or having to replace lost staff.
Three factors are converging in society and the workplace, Ginzler said. The first is that people are living longer, often with chronic illnesses. Secondly, there are more women in the workplace, and women have traditionally played the role of caregiver. The third factor is the wave of aging baby boomers.
“If you get to the age of 65, there is a two-thirds chance that you are going to need assistance with some of your daily living,” Ginzler said. “We have boomers now turning 60. They’re the caregivers, and they’re going to turn into the care recipients as they get older.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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