Elderly care: Solutions needed to reduce the "double burden" on women.

Vietnam’s elderly-care problem is also a workplace problem

Vietnam had about 14.2 million people aged 60 and older in 2024. That number is expected to reach roughly 18 million by 2030 and 21.5 million by 2035.

Those figures come from a discussion led by Dr. Pham Vu Hoang, Deputy Director of Vietnam’s Population Department under the Ministry of Health. The department is calling for elderly care to move beyond a family-only responsibility and become a shared effort involving the State, communities, businesses, and families.

That is a sensible position. It is also a warning for business owners, including those operating far from Vietnam. The pressure created by aging populations does not stay inside the home. It shows up in missed shifts, distracted employees, sudden leave requests, and experienced people leaving work because their family has no backup.

Women are carrying most of the unpaid care

Women perform nearly 70% of family elderly-care work in Vietnam. The imbalance becomes even clearer in spousal care. About 52.34% of elderly men are cared for by their wives, compared with 10.67% of elderly women cared for by their husbands.

That is not just a household issue. It affects who can work full time, who turns down a promotion, and who is expected to handle an emergency during business hours. In a small company, one employee stepping away for several weeks can put real strain on the rest of the team.

We see a similar pattern in San Diego County. Employees may be caring for a parent in another city, coordinating appointments, or managing a crisis from their phone while trying to keep a customer or project on track. They may not call it a caregiving problem at first. They may simply say they are overwhelmed.

Small companies cannot solve elder care by themselves. They can stop pretending it has nothing to do with operations.

Smaller households leave fewer people to share the work

Vietnam’s average household size fell from 5.2 people in 1979 to 3.6 in 2024. As extended families give way to smaller households, fewer relatives are available to share daily care.

The same pressure appears in many American families. Adult children live in different states. Siblings have separate jobs and households. A parent’s fall can turn into a scheduling problem for everyone within minutes.

The proposed response in Vietnam includes training both men and women in basic care skills and developing affordable professional care services. The specific policy timeline, funding, and implementation requirements remain unclear. The direction is not unclear. Family care alone will not cover the demand.

For employers, this means informal arrangements are not enough. “Just let me know if you need anything” sounds supportive, but it gives managers no plan when an employee needs three days away with four hours’ notice.

What a 30-person company should actually change

We would start with the people and processes already in place, not with an expensive benefits program.

First, make the time-off rules easy to understand. Employees should know whether they can use paid leave, unpaid leave, flexible hours, or remote work for caregiving. Managers should not invent a different answer for each person.

Second, identify jobs where a single absence creates an immediate risk. Cross-train one backup for payroll, customer support, purchasing, system administration, and other roles that cannot simply pause.

Third, document access before a crisis occurs. If the only person who knows the accounting system, file server, or line-of-business application is suddenly unavailable, the business has a technology problem and a continuity problem.

Fourth, protect company accounts when work moves outside the office. An employee caring for a parent may use a personal laptop, home Wi-Fi, or a phone in a hurry. That is exactly when weak passwords and missing updates become expensive.

We would not recommend buying a large platform just because aging is in the news. A 30-person company does not need a new system to prove it cares. It needs clear policies, current documentation, secure remote access, and a backup person for critical work.

The practical IT response is small and specific

Ask your IT provider to review which employees can access essential systems, whether those accounts use multifactor authentication, and how quickly another employee could take over if someone disappeared for a week.

Then test it. Have the backup person perform the task without help from the primary employee. If payroll, customer records, or a key application cannot be handled, fix that gap before a family emergency exposes it.

Elderly care is becoming a larger workforce issue, but the response does not have to be dramatic. Review your leave process, cross-train the roles that matter, and ask IT911Now to help check whether your systems can keep running when a key employee needs to step away.