Report: Employers Not Offering Caregiving Benefits Risk Losing Top Talent

According to recent data, nearly three-quarters of American workers (73%) are juggling family caregiving responsibilities with other personal and professional obligations.

A new report from Prudential Financial suggests that employers that fail to evolve employee benefits packages to include caregiving benefits are at risk of losing top talent.

Earlier in 2025, Prudential surveyed more than 2,900 full-time employees and 750 employers in the United States. While finding that paid time off to care for a loved one is the most desired caregiving benefit across all employee demographics, only about half of employers (52%) currently offer paid caregiving leave.

The types of paid leave programs employers are most frequently offering include parental (89%), military (55%), caregiving (52%) and pregnancy loss (51%), according to Prudential. A majority of organizations (63%) indicated they offer employer-paid leave programs, but one-third of employees said they needed to take an official family or medical leave of at least four days but did not do so.

Among workers who said they didn’t take that time, the largest number (37%) cited affordability as the reason why, followed by the fear of the stigma that their employer will think poorly of them (33%), worries that it may affect their career advancement (26%), and not wanting to leave coworkers with the workload (26%).

The majority of employers surveyed (69%) said they recognize the positive impact that offering paid leave have on an organization, but some “still have hesitations” about implementing paid caregiving leave, according to Prudential. More than 40% of employers said they fear employees would abuse the policy, with 36% saying they believe that employee needs are met by unpaid leave or short-term disability coverage (30%).

“Caregiving isn’t a niche issue—it’s a workplace reality,” says Michael Estep, president of Prudential Group Insurance, in a statement.

“Employees across every demographic are asking for paid leave, and employers who don’t respond risk losing talent. Embracing paid leave as an essential benefit that supports the well-being of caregivers in the workforce can be a powerful strategy to attract and retain talented workers, while also supporting them in ways that can boost satisfaction, loyalty and performance.”