Family estrangement isn’t just a private family problem anymore. It’s become a widely discussed social phenomenon. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, reports and polls across the United States have pointed to a rise in adults cutting ties with relatives.
The subject is everywhere: on social media, on talk shows, and in conversations with friends who are navigating increasingly complicated family dynamics.
A 2020 Cornell University study by sociologist Karl Pillemer offered a striking pre-pandemic baseline: 27 percent of American adults—roughly 67 million people — reported being estranged from a relative.
The numbers now appear even higher. A comprehensive 2025 YouGov poll found that 38 percent of U.S. adults reported being estranged from at least one close family member.
While researchers caution that long-term longitudinal data is still limited, psychologists point to pandemic-era stress, political polarization, and changing cultural norms as factors that may have accelerated family ruptures and made no contact an increasingly familiar choice.
Family ruptures quietly seep into the workplace
The estimated total of all mental health challenges in the workforce costs U.S. businesses $47.6 billion annually in lost productivity, according to Gallup.
Businesses started paying meaningful attention to employee mental health in the 1980s and 1990s, but it became a major mainstream business priority around 2020–22, largely because of the pandemic, burnout, anxiety, and remote-work disruption.
Because the workplace is where most adults spend much of their waking hours, the effects of family estrangement don’t necessarily stay at home. The grief and trauma can drain attention, leadership capacity, creativity, productivity, and ultimately, the company’s bottom line.
Presenteeism is on the rise
Have you ever felt like you were talking to someone who was physically in the room with you, but their mind was somewhere else? Employees dealing with the emotional fallout of estrangement often suffer from presenteeism at work—physically present but not mentally there in the moment.
Chronic stress, grief, and anxiety that come with family estrangement can lead to significant deficits in cognitive energy and output. This brain drain can also heighten irritability, weaken focus on demanding work, and cause critical meetings and deadlines to be missed.
Heightened emotional strain, especially near holidays
The workplace can often feel like a second home, especially if you are close with your co-workers. The office also tends to mirror societal norms and expectations around family, especially during major holiday seasons at year-end.
Office small talk about holiday plans and family vacations can be a constant emotional trigger. This environment can cause estranged employees to experience spikes in anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal—temporarily lowering team morale and engagement.
Increased absenteeism and health care costs
The chronic, long-term stress of family trauma can often manifest physically. Estranged individuals frequently report higher rates of insomnia, fatigue, autoimmune flare-ups, and mental health crises.
For businesses, this can lead to unplanned consecutive days off, higher PTO or short-term disability use, and increased health insurance premiums.
Confusing professional relationships
The psychological dynamics of family estrangement can sometimes bleed into professional environments without realizing it. Adults who have cut ties with family members, for whatever reasons, may struggle with authority figures or conflict resolution in the office. They can overreact to constructive feedback, take things too personally, and even refuse to ask for help when they need it.
These issues can create unspoken problems between colleagues, which can lead to unsolved problems at scale.
When family crisis shows up at work
I spoke with David Simonse of Creative Solutions Counseling Solutions about when a private family crisis becomes an employer’s business.
“When work is being impacted negatively by a family crisis, then an employer should step in carefully and respectfully,” he explained. “Ultimately, they should see whether they can be helpful and to determine whether there is a risk to the business itself.”
Simonse noted that while HR can help employees navigate some family crises, it can’t address every situation. He suggested that companies broaden family leave beyond traditional milestones like birth or death, giving employees more flexibility to manage serious personal crises before they affect their work and morale.
As he puts it, talking with HR about “how it impacts their work would be a good start.”
Compassion has a business case
Employers cannot repair families. However, they can use their resources on-hand and find the compassion to best support their employees in such challenging times.
A workforce that carries unresolved family loss has thinner reserves. The cost is paid in missed ideas, thinner leadership, and quiet quitting—numbers that compound long after the last work meeting.
—Robyn D. Shulman
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister website, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
