Women and girls perform an estimated 16 billion hours of unpaid care work every day, supporting families, aging parents, households, and communities, according to UN Women. For many, this work is deeply meaningful. Caring for loved ones and helping parents navigate later life is often seen as an act of love. Yet while this work is essential, the financial cost of that invisible labour is rarely counted or discussed.
South African evidence suggests caregiving responsibilities remain heavily gendered. The Commission for Gender Equality's 2024 review found that women continue to perform the majority of unpaid care work, including caring for elderly relatives. For many families, that responsibility falls to adult daughters to step into the role of caregiver as their parents age. Often informal and unplanned, this care can quietly spread into every corner of a daughter’s financial life, from the emergency fund she cannot build to the retirement contributions she postpones, and the career opportunities she cannot risk taking. This Women’s Month we are reminded that for many women, these responsibilities accumulate alongside careers, raising children and building their own lives.
Farzana Botha, Senior Communications Manager at Sanlam Risk and Savings, describes this as the “daughterhood penalty”, the economic cost of a daughter becoming her family’s financial lifeline and care coordinator. “The daughterhood penalty is essentially a tax on empathy. Women are often socialised to be caregivers, so they may not have strong financial boundaries, or they may not feel as though boundaries should exist when the family needs support. The responsibility can also arrive early, before a woman has had the opportunity to build her own financial foundation.”
Care has more than one price tag
The cost of supporting a parent is not limited to money transferred at the end of the month. Madri Jacobs CFP®, a Sanlam financial planner and authorised principal at Brilliance BlueStar, says there is also a cost measured in time. A daughter may be scheduling appointments, accompanying a parent to the clinic, resolving banking queries, and arranging household help. Then there is the emotional work, like anticipating problems, carrying everyone’s worries and remaining available when something goes wrong.
“Supporting ageing parents is no longer an unusual situation,” says Jacobs. “The best starting point is to accept that you may need to assist your parents at some stage and begin planning for it as part of your budget and emergency-fund provision.”
Build “survival capital” before the emergency arrives
Botha says a dependable daughter protecting her own financial position is not selfish. The reality that her income may be supporting several people makes it even more important to protect. She refers to the combination of emergency savings, income protection, disability or impairment cover, severe illness protection and retirement planning as “survival capital”.
“Together, this protection creates the financial foundation that helps a woman survive difficult personal circumstances while continuing to support the people who depend on her.”
The protection gap remains significant. Sanlam found that, on average, only 16% of South African women have income protection, while 45% do not have life insurance. Jacobs says a woman supporting parents should consider what would happen if she were unable to earn temporarily, became permanently disabled or died before them.
Jacobs says, “People do not necessarily die in order of their age. If your parents rely on your income, your financial plan should consider how their essential needs would be met if you were no longer able to provide for them.”
She says a qualified financial adviser can help a woman identify the most urgent risks, understand what protection she already has through her employer and build a plan around what she can currently afford.
A practical parent-care plan
A daughter may be the most dependable person in the family, but she should not automatically become the entire care system. Botha and Jacobs suggest the following steps for women who recognise themselves in this role:
- Put the real costs on paper. List parents’ recurring and once-off expenses, including medical, transport, household and administrative costs. Then separate essential needs from discretionary requests.
- Agree on a contribution you can sustain. Decide what you can provide without repeatedly using credit, missing essential payments or abandoning your own savings goals.
- Ring-fence the money. Keep parent-care funds and emergency savings separate from everyday spending so that one expense does not swallow every other priority.
- Keep contributing towards your retirement. Even a modest, consistent contribution helps prevent today’s daughter from becoming tomorrow’s financially dependent parent.
- Share the financial and administrative load. Agree on roles with siblings, relatives and the broader support network instead of waiting for the next crisis.
- Put essential information in order. Keep a record of important policies, medical information, accounts and contacts, and ensure your own will is valid, current and accessible.
Boundaries can be an expression of care
A financial boundary does not have to sound like rejection. It could be you saying you can cover the medical aid, but you cannot also take on the vehicle payment. Or you can contribute this amount every month, but you cannot keep funding unplanned requests from your credit card.
Botha concludes, “The message this Women’s Month is not that women should walk away from their families. It is that we need regulated, structured systems that allow for sustainable giving. A daughter who secures her own financial foundation can continue to play a pivotal role in her family, while showing the next generation that care and financial self-preservation can exist together.”
