Op-Ed: The Elderly as Default Caregivers

Designed by Microsoft

In Cambodia’s low-income households, professional childcare is a luxury. Public childcare infrastructure is almost non-existent, and private daycare options remain inaccessible to most families. For working parents—especially mothers—the only viable option is often a return to the family home, where aging parents step in as caregivers.

It’s a necessity born out of limited choices, absent childcare policies, and the heavy weight of intergenerational expectations.

At first glance, this appears to be a practical and even heartwarming solution. But under the surface lies a growing tension:

Elderly people, many with declining health and limited incomes, are shouldering an exhausting and invisible form of labor. It’s not just about keeping a watchful eye; it’s feeding, bathing, educating, and emotionally supporting young children—often full-time.

Feminized Burdens Across Generations

This caregiving model is not gender-neutral. 

The reality is that grandmothers, not grandfathers, do the bulk of this unpaid work. Many of these older women are already overworked from a lifetime of unpaid domestic labor. Now, in what should be their years of rest and healing, they are once again bound by care duties—this time, for a new generation.

This system creates a double burden for women across the age spectrum:

• Young mothers are often pushed into low-wage labor to support their families, with few maternal protections or support systems.

• Older women are tasked with picking up the caregiving slack, with no pay, recognition, or access to health services tailored to their caregiving role.

  
  

The Costs We Don’t See

This setup may work in the short term, but it comes at a cost.

• Children’s development may suffer without professional early childhood education.

• Elderly caregivers face fatigue, chronic stress, and health decline.

• Families remain trapped in a cycle where caregiving needs are met informally, but the long-term emotional and economic sustainability is shaky at best.

  
  

In rural areas, grandparents often care for grandchildren left behind by migrant workers who’ve moved to cities or abroad. In urban slums, grandparents watch over toddlers while their adult children sell noodles on the roadside.

These arrangements are coping mechanisms—not solutions.

Why This Should Concern All of Us

When we rely on informal systems to meet essential social needs, we normalize the abandonment of public responsibility. The reliance on elderly relatives for childcare isn’t a unique Cambodian phenomenon, but in a country still healing from poverty, conflict, and inequality, its consequences are especially pronounced.

We must ask:

Why are elderly women still unpaid care workers?

Why is childcare treated as a private, family burden rather than a public good?