The Sandwich Generation: Dual Caregiving and Baby Boomers

Defining the Sandwich Generation

The term "sandwich generation" refers to people who are caring for their own children while also taking responsibility for the care of their elderly parents. Members of the sandwich generation are generally baby boomers, and this phenomenon is largely due to the impact of delayed childbearing on life patterns. The traditional sandwich arrangement occurs when children are still in the home and elderly parents have moved in, placing the middle generation in the dual role of primary caretaker. However, the sandwich generation can include any person cast in the role of dual caregiver—not only baby boomers—since it encompasses anyone responsible for both children and elderly relatives.

Furthermore, there is more at work in the sandwich generation than simply delayed childbearing. The current generation of elderly people has a greater life expectancy than prior generations, which also means that generation may require more intense care than those who came before. The trend of delayed childbearing combined with greater life expectancies means that successive generations are likely to feel even greater dual-caregiving obligations.

Who Bears the Burden: Demographics and Stressors

The sandwich phenomenon does not affect baby boomers equally; it has a disproportionate impact on women, who already carry most of the responsibility for childcare. "Currently, the typical American Sandwich Generation caregiver is in her mid-forties, married, employed, and cares for her family and an elderly parent, usually her mother" (Bogolea, 2008). Caregivers are spread across the community and face similar struggles and challenges. One of the primary stressors is competing demands. Caregivers ask themselves how to split time between their children and an elderly family member; how much time is too much in each role; how to find time for their marriages; how to find time for themselves; how to keep peace between the children and the elderly relative; how to find the needed resources for elder care; how to combat feelings of isolation; and how to deal with guilt when unable to meet everyone's expectations (Bogolea, 2008).

Although many cultures treat shared-family homes as a norm, the prevailing norm in the United States is the nuclear family. A sandwich situation can therefore create a serious disruption in life and expectations for those placed in the caretaker position. "People in their 30s and 40s are in a time of progress. They settle down into productive careers. They might buy their first home, or get married. For individuals in their 50s, the thought of retirement is close enough to almost grab. These individuals may be looking forward to retirement, travel, and relaxation after years of raising children and working" (Chait, 2009). For these people, having elderly relatives move into their home—or beginning to rely on them for care—marks a significant change in life direction.

While many people feel compelled to become caregivers for their elderly parents, experts do not uniformly support this assumption. Cunningham issues the following warning: "Be careful taking on the responsibility of another person's life. Even when you love that person. Statistically, when it is another full-time job on top of your 'regular' job, you become the next person who needs help" (2005).

Rural Caregivers and Support Networks

For many people, caregivers do not always have an available support network—and this problem can be either eased or compounded depending on where a person resides. While many sandwich generation families live in urban areas, an increasing number live in rural areas and face special challenges. Rural caregivers may find themselves removed from readily available and professionally organized supportive services and care networks. They may carry not only the normal burdens associated with caring for a loved one, but also face geographic barriers to resources and isolation from other caregivers, family members, or informal supports. This lack of service availability, care networks, and social connection can add to caregiver stress, burnout, and depression (Bogolea, 2008).

Demographic Research on Dual-Caregiving Duration

While the sandwich generation concept specifically refers to people with children and elderly parents in the home, it generally describes people experiencing an extended period of dual caregiving. Rogerson and Kim investigated the impact of delayed childbearing on the duration of caregiving periods. They found that members of the baby-boom cohort typically had first children around age 25 and completed childbearing by age 35, implying that they were empty-nesters at age 55. At that point, the individual's parents were approximately 80 years old. If caregiving begins around age 75, there is a period of roughly five years during which simultaneous demands are placed on the baby boomer (Rogerson and Kim, 2005).

However, their evidence did not support the notion that baby boomers are spending more time as dual caregivers because of delayed childbearing. Contrasting baby boomers with their parents' generation, Rogerson and Kim found a simultaneous caregiving demand of approximately five years in that prior generation as well (2005). These results did not disprove that sandwich generation members face a meaningful dual-caregiving period, but they do suggest that delayed childbearing is not the primary cause of the overlap. Instead, their analysis revealed that "the timing itself places no additional demands on baby boomers. Increasing life expectancies, however, have implied that baby boomers' parents are more likely to be alive and in need of caregiving, relative to the situation faced by the boomers' parents" (Rogerson and Kim, 2005). This increase in parental life expectancy may be somewhat offset by the fact that baby boomers are more likely to come from larger families, allowing the burden of parent care to be distributed among siblings (Rogerson and Kim, 2005).

Conclusion

There is no question that some middle-aged people are called upon to be caregivers for their adult parents while still caring for minor children or adult children still living in the home; however, the idea of a sandwich generation is a bit of a misnomer. The vast majority of baby boomers are not caring for elderly parents. Instead, a subset of the generation appears to be taking on a disproportionate share of responsibility for the elderly, and these same individuals may also be reaping disproportionate benefits—since caregiving, despite all of its stresses, appears to improve overall quality of life for those who provide it.

Rather than viewing baby boomers as a squeezed sandwich generation, it may be more accurate and more constructive to picture them as returning to an older tradition—one that involved multiple generations sharing a family home—rather than adhering to the relative isolation of the nuclear family ideal.

References

Berger, K. S. (2005). The developing person through the life span. New York: Worth Publishers.

Bogolea, K. (2008). Rural caregivers living in shadowland. Retrieved February 15, 2009, from Caregiver.com.

Chait, J. (2009). Sandwich generation. Retrieved February 17, 2009, from LovetoKnow.com.

Cunningham, S. (2005). Unwrapping the sandwich generation: Life vignettes about seniors and their adult boomer children. Garden City, NY: Morgan James Publishing.

Rogerson, P., & Kim, D. (2005). Population distribution and redistribution of the baby-boom cohort in the United States: Recent trends and implications. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(43), 15319–15324. ]