Australia’s unpaid carers are burning out, and the numbers back it up

At some point, nearly every one of us will become a carer. For a child, a partner, a parent, a friend. Sometimes we see it coming, and sometimes it arrives like a wave, sudden, disorienting, and impossible to step out of. What’s harder to see is how much that quiet, constant work costs us.

New data released for National Carers Week 2025 confirms what many of us suspected: carers are burning out. The 2025 Carer Wellbeing Survey, with responses from 10,918 informal carers (up from 9,166 last year), paints a grim picture of physical, social and emotional strain.

A stark slide in wellbeing

• 61.1 % of carers now report low wellbeing, up from 57.7 % in 2024.
• By contrast, only 33.6 % of the average Australian adult are said to experience similarly low wellbeing.
• 31.4 % of carers are grappling with high psychological distress (up from 28.2 %).
• 42.7 % said they feel lonely ‘often or always’.
• 16.7 % rated their financial circumstances as poor or very poor, compared to 9.2 % across the general population.

These numbers don’t just whisper about mounting pressure; they scream.

Inescapable duty, invisible cost

Two statistics struck us hard:

• 72.1 % of carers said they had no choice in taking on that role.
• And yet, only 15 % feel recognised or valued by the health or education systems.

So many of us fall into caring by default, by blood, by necessity, by crisis, and we do the work without formal training, compensation, or appreciation. At the same time, half of all carers said the role offers them purpose or meaning.

That mix, exhaustion, financial strain, emotional toll, yet a resilient sense of responsibility, is heartbreakingly familiar to so many of us in the trenches.

What’s driving the decline?

Carers Australia points to cost of living pressures (for both carer and care recipient) and barriers to paid employment as twin forces pushing carers toward the brink. The crunch from inflation, housing, energy, and essential services doesn’t spare those already giving more than they can.

“We know many carers don’t even realise they are carers,” says Carers Australia CEO Annabel Reid, and that’s part of the problem: without that label, you don’t seek the support until you “break.”

She’s spot on, in our community we know that many are at crisis point before they accept that help might exist: counselling, coaching, peer support, respite, future planning tools. Many don’t even know CarerGateway or state-level carer organisations exist.

Still, Reid sees a glimmer: a renewed National Carer Strategy and accompanying action plan, absent for the past decade, is now on the table. She says Carers Australia will work with federal Minister McAllister and other stakeholders to push for real change.

That’s hopeful, but output, not words, will need to make the difference.

Why this matters to all of us

If you’re reading this, you are probably or will be:

• Someone who gives care, or
• Someone who receives care, or
• Someone who watches someone give care and wonders how to help.

These figures tell us that caring isn’t a niche issue, it’s a national one, entangled with mental health, poverty, workforce participation, gender equity (most carers remain women), community resilience and even hospital pressures.

We need systemic, structural change: adequate social supports, flexible employment, recognition inside health and education, and funding for carer services, not to mention cultural change that lifts carers out of invisibility.

What carers (and those watching) can do

If you’re a carer – or suspect you are:

• Visit CarerGateway or your state/territory carer organisation to explore supports: counselling, coaching, peer connection, planning services.
• Know that you don’t have to wait until you’re drowning to accept help.
• Share your story. The more visible our struggles, the harder it is to ignore the solutions.

If you’re someone who cares for carers:

• Ask them, “How are you doing?”
• Recognise their labour—practically, emotionally, publicly.
• Advocate: support policies that uplift carers. Write to MPs. Push for recognition in hospitals, schools, workplaces.

The truth is blunt: you may be a carer now and not even know it. Or you will become one. And if we don’t tend to carers’ wellbeing, society will pay the price; not in empathy, but in health, in lost workforce, in isolation, in burnout.

Let us hope this week’s spotlight cracks open more than just headlines and leads to lasting compassion, commitment and change.

To get involved in National Carers Week, visit CarersWeek.com.au or CarerGateway.gov.au.