KPMG Maps Shifting Childcare, Eldercare, and Caregiving Labor Markets in 2026

KPMG released "Mapping the Care Economy in 2026" on March 20, pinning its analysis to a labor market reality that touches nearly every professional services firm in ways that rarely show up in utilization reports: the growing weight of caregiving responsibilities on the workforce.

The report examines three interconnected markets, childcare, eldercare, and the broader caregiving labor supply, tracing how shifts in each are reshaping what employers can expect from workers and what workers expect in return. For a firm like KPMG, where long hours during busy season and the relentless grind toward partner track already strain personal capacity, the care economy is not an abstract policy question. It is the reason a senior associate leaves at 5:30, why a manager turns down a high-visibility engagement, or why a promising director quietly steps back from the partner pipeline.

The timing of the publication is deliberate. Care-sector pressures have been building for years, but 2026 brings a particular convergence: an aging population increasing eldercare demand, persistent childcare shortages in major metro markets where professional-services firms concentrate their offices, and a caregiving workforce that remains chronically underpaid and undersupplied. KPMG's framing positions these not as social concerns peripheral to business strategy but as structural labor-market conditions with direct implications for talent availability, workforce planning, and client-facing capacity.

The research also carries internal relevance. KPMG has spent recent years expanding its benefits and flexibility offerings, and understanding where the care economy is headed gives the firm's own human capital and benefits teams a sharper map for those decisions. When childcare costs in cities like New York and San Francisco approach or exceed entry-level salaries, retention at the associate and senior associate level becomes a care-economy problem as much as a compensation one.

For auditors and advisory professionals tracking how AI and automation are redistributing labor across industries, the care sector presents a distinct dynamic: it is among the least automatable corners of the economy, which means the supply constraints are unlikely to resolve through technology the way they might in, say, document review or financial modeling. That makes the workforce and wage pressures KPMG identified more durable, and the business implications more persistent, than a typical cyclical tightening.

The report adds to KPMG's broader push to position itself as a thought leader on workforce transformation at a moment when clients across industries are renegotiating their relationships with labor.