What is the 'sandwich generation'? Many adults struggle with caregiving, bills and work

Caregiving can be a full-time job. For members of the sandwich generation, it can be more than a full-time job.

The average adult who cares for both children and aging relatives reports providing 28 hours of weekly care to the kids and another 22 hours tending to senior family members, a new survey finds. That’s 50 hours a week: a 9-to-5 job and then some.  

A new Wealth Watch survey, released this month by the insurance giant New York Life, spotlights the costs of caregiving, in time and money, to midlife Americans who minister both to children and elders.

Roughly half of “sandwiched” adults said they were unable to cover essential expenses, such as rent, groceries, or medical care because of steep caregiving costs at some point in the past year. Nearly half said they had taken on credit card debt, with an average balance of nearly $13,000.

Millennials and men are joining the 'sandwich generation'

A growing share of the sandwich generation are millennials, adults born between 1981 and 1996. They are struggling with “a confluence of events that is hitting them, economically, pretty hard,” said Suzanne Schmitt, head of financial wellness at New York Life.

Inflation recently hit a 40-year high. Student loan payments resumed this fall after a lengthy pause. Costs of child care and elder care are rising.

While sandwiched caregivers struggle to manage their finances, they also navigate an array of daily tasks, from bathing parents to shuttling children to and from school.

Some midlife Americans take on caregiver roles gradually, as they embark on parenthood and respond to the needs of their aging parents. For others, the transition can be sudden and unexpected.

At 28, Sadé Dozan had an infant daughter, a full-time job and a mother who planned to help raise the child. Then, her mother had a heart attack.

“One day, she was fine and actively watching my daughter and really a big part of our child care operation,” Dozan said. “And the next day, my mother was in a coma.”

Dozan joined the sandwich generation. Now 34, she cares for her daughter, her mother and her father, who has battled cancer.

Her routine involves “everything from weekly grocery runs to medication pickups to answering emails while I’m on hold with Medicare,” she said.

Dozan balances caregiver duties with her job as chief of development and operations at Caring Across Generations, a nonprofit that works with other caregivers.

“Oftentimes, I’ll be in the car with my mom or my dad and driving to an appointment and in a strategy meeting with my job at the same time,” she said.

What is the sandwich generation, and how large is it?

Roughly one-quarter of American adults belong to the sandwich generation, according to Pew Research.

By Pew’s definition, the generation includes anyone sandwiched between a parent 65 or older and a child who receives at least their financial support. Others define the generation more narrowly as adults, traditionally female, who are actively caring for parents and children at the same time.

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The New York Life survey shows the sandwich generation in flux. The population is shifting from Generation X to younger millennials, some of whom are entering their 40s. Caregivers are increasingly male.

The pandemic plunged many men into caregiver roles for the first time, confining them to their homes with their children to juggle domestic duties alongside their partners.

“The pandemic made it so that far more people who had not historically been caregivers had to become caregivers,” Schmitt said. “I think we’re seeing a positive trend in that more men are self-reporting as caregivers. It’s sort of become socially normalized.”

The New York Life poll, conducted in August and September, reached 1,003 adults who reported providing care to both children and elders. Pollsters compared results to a 2020 survey that sampled the same population.

In 2020, roughly equal shares of sandwiched caregivers were millennials or Gen Xers. By 2023, the balance had shifted to 66% millennials and 23% Gen X.

In the same three-year span, the gender balance of caregivers tilted, swinging from 64% female and 36% male in 2020 to 55% male and 45% female in 2023.

The survey asked caregivers to quantify many different categories of care, from bathing and dressing loved ones to preparing meals, providing rides and running errands.

Many in the sandwich generation struggle at their paid jobs

Not surprisingly, many caregivers report struggling at their paid jobs.

“They’re reducing their hours,” Schmitt said. “They are turning down promotions. They are being put on performance improvement plans or even leaving the workforce.”

The sandwich generation can be tricky to quantify because of conflicting definitions and the limitations of surveys.

While the Pew report suggested that nearly one-quarter of all adults are sandwiched between older and younger generations, only a fraction of sandwiched adults provide care to both elders and offspring.

A recent University of Michigan study estimates that about 2.5 million Americans provide care to older family members while also raising children under 18.

Michigan researchers found that the average sandwich generation caregiver was 46. Three-fifths of caregivers were women. (The researchers collected their survey data in 2015, well before the pandemic and its apparent effect in shifting the gender balance of caregivers.)

Sandwiched caregivers put in about 75 hours a month taking care of older loved ones, the Michigan study found. That works out to nearly 20 hours a week, not far below the 22 hours reported in the New York Life survey.

“They probably are providing more hours of care to their young kids,” although researchers didn’t count those hours, said Lianlian Lei, a postdoctoral researcher in geriatric psychiatry and co-author of the Michigan paper. It appeared in the March 2023 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The Michigan study compared sandwiched caregivers to adults who only provided care to an aging parent. Sandwiched caregivers were twice as likely to report financial difficulties.

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The sandwich generation may be growing

The sandwich generation may be growing. Half of adults ages 18 to 29 were living with their parents in 2022, compared to 38% in 2000, Pew Research found. Americans are living longer, although the pandemic and opioid deaths have blunted society’s progress in longevity.

Adults are having children at a later age. Older parents mean older grandparents, a trend that puts many millennials in the difficult spot of caring for their parents while their children remain young.

“There probably will be more sandwich caregivers in the next few decades,” Lei said.