Help is on the way for the 5.2 million Canadians who juggle paid work and unpaid caregiving.
McMaster professor Allison Williams, a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in the Care Economy, Aging and Policy, and a health geographer with the School of Earth, Environment & Society, is leading a new seven-year research initiative to support working Canadians who shoulder the added responsibilities of caring for aging adult dependents and children with disabilities.
The initiative has been awarded $2.47 million in funding from the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
To improve both work-life balance for carer-employees and the bottom line for their employers, Williams has assembled a multidisciplinary team of 73 co-investigators, collaborators and partners from across Canada and around the world, including research universities and institutes, governments, caregiving advocacy organizations, unions and occupational health and safety organizations.
Building on the work she has led during the last two decades, the team will carry out 10 research projects focused on building, scaling up and advocating for workplace policies that support carer-employees. Williams will lead five of those projects.
Their work will directly benefit caregivers who make up more than a third of Canada’s workforce, says Williams. That percentage is expected to climb as Canada’s population ages and fertility rates decline.
“Unpaid caregivers are the backbone of Canada’s health care system and they urgently need help,” says Williams, who has dedicated her career to studying the costs and consequences for employees and employers.
“Without that help, carer-employees are at serious risk of burning out and dropping out of the workforce. When that happens, everyone — employees, employers, the Canadian economy, and consequently all Canadians — pay the price.”
The majority of carer-employees are women who provide both a greater number of weekly caregiving hours and carry out more intensive care tasks, such as washing, clothing and feeding.
In Canada, one in 20 carer-employees quit their jobs because of unpaid caregiving responsibilities and many more work fewer hours, says Williams. This puts caregivers at higher risk of living in poverty, retiring with insufficient savings and facing greater challenges and barriers when re-entering the workforce.
Most carer-employees are in the middle or later stages of their careers, making them among the most experienced, highly skilled and valuable workers, Williams says.
“Supporting these employees with carer-inclusive workplace policies and practices like flex-time, job-sharing and paid leave to care for family members can give organizations a competitive advantage when it comes to recruitment and retention, containing benefit costs, boosting productivity and strengthening loyalty,” she says.
“There are real consequences to not paying attention to this issue: People will punch out one way or another. Employers need to pay attention. If they don’t, they’ll lose their workforce.”
A key outcome for the partnership is showing employers which policies and practices will work best for their sector, employee profile and size of their workforce, along with practical guidance on how to implement and evaluate those supports.
Employers will also need to change their workplace culture. “In many organizations, caregiving is still seen as a private issue.”
Along with better understanding the needs of carer-employees and building research-informed workforce policies and supports, the partnership will train the next generation of researchers in the field, including four early-career researchers, a postdoctoral fellow, 15 graduate students and 38 research assistants.
Since 2004, Williams has been awarded nearly $20 million in research funding as a principal investigator or co-applicant. Having supervised more than 100 students over the course of her career, she was successfully nominated by her graduate students for McMaster’s 2024 President’s Award for Outstanding Graduate Supervision.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Academy of Health Sciences, Williams is internationally recognized for her leadership on workplace interventions and advocacy for carer-employees.
Earlier this year, Williams received the 2026 Work-Family Research Award from the Vanier Institute of the Family.
Williams previously led a partnership with the Canadian Standards Association to develop a practical tool for employers to create, implement and sustain carer-friendly workplace policies (B701-17 Carer-inclusive and accommodating organizations standard and accompanying implementation guide, B701HB-18, Helping worker-carers in your organization, accessible for free download until July 29).
The Canadian standard served as the foundation for an international standard that Williams led and was published by the International Standard Organization in 2022. In addressing five of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, this standard garnered global attention from the United Nations and the International Alliance of Carer Organizations.
To further support this work, Williams led the development of a tuition-free Creating Caregiver-Friendly Workplaces micro-credential course. Designed for human resources professionals and senior leaders looking to learn more about carer-inclusive workplace policies and best practices, the course is offered through McMaster Continuing Education.
“McMaster is challenging researchers to be bolder together, and to increase the societal impact of our work,” says Williams.
“With this initiative, we’re answering that call for carer-employees and their employers both in Canada and internationally, while also developing our next generation of social and health scientists and carer-employee champions.”