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The 'Sandwiched' Generation

Neal, M. B., & Hammer, L. B. (2004). Dual-earner couples in the sandwiched generation: how they manage their work and family demands. Portland State University: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. www.sandwich.pdx.edu

In this report, Neal and Hammer write about an extensive study that investigated working couples 'sandwiched' between caring for dependent children and caring for ageing parents, and how they manage work and multiple family care responsibilities. The authors highlight four demographic trends that combine to produce the sandwich effect.

Increased labour force participation by women (the traditional family caregivers) with the resulting increase in the number of dual earner couples.
The ageing of the workforce and the accompanying increase in the number of workers caring for ageing parents.
Delayed child bearing resulting in working couples who may have responsibility for dependent children and/or parents.
Slowing growth in the trained labour force and increasing competition for skilled workers.

The researchers make the interesting point that, although many previous studies have focussed upon the difficulties of combining work and family (work-family conflict), an alternative perspective is that there are beneficial effects of holding both work and family roles, such as increased energy which may outweigh additional stress. This is the 'role spillover' hypothesis, where psychological states experienced in one role (positive or negative) transfer to the other role, and vice versa.

The constructs of work-family conflict and work-family positive spillover can be seen as indicators of 'work-family fit', or (of) the degree to which the work and the family roles are integrated, enabling studies to examine the positive effects, in addition to the negative effects, of combining work and family. (p. 5)

Neal and Hammer conducted 17 focus groups with sandwiched couples to learn about the work and family accommodations they made and the coping strategies they used to balance work and family life. This was followed up with telephone and mail surveys, re-surveys one year later, additional focus groups and in-depth telephone interviews with selected sub-samples. The study found the following.

For wives:
31 % had reduced the number of hours they worked
27% refused or limited travel
24% chose a job that gave them more flexibility to meet family demands
21% refused or decided not to work towards a promotion.
For husbands:
23% had refused or limited travel
17% reduced the number of hours they worked.

A large proportion of wives worked part-time to accommodate work and family demands. Women make more work-related accommodations than men, while there was no gender-related difference in family-related accommodations. The authors state that these couples seemed to embrace a very traditional gender-role ideology.

The authors developed three coping strategies.

Increasing emotional resources
Decreasing social involvement
Increasing prioritisation

In reverse, working couples receive financial, emotional, child care and household help from ageing parents. Help from parents appears beneficial in terms of the quality of relationships with parents and improved self-ratings of performance as caregivers. Balanced against these factors are costs of concern and being upset about ageing parents.

Specific coping strategies include:

flexible work schedules
flexplace/telecommuting options
cooperation from family members with household tasks.

Hampering factors include:

longer working hours
complex child-care arrangements.

It was found that, for wives, work-family conflict was a significant predictor of work withdrawal. Performance problems occasionally resulted from concern about one's children and about one's parents. For husbands, work-family conflict was a significant predictor of performance problems resulting from concern about one's children.

Implications for managers include creating family-friendly workplaces with formal supports such as flexible work schedules and informal supports such as managerial support for work-family issues, and increasing job role rewards such as increasing control and decision-making autonomy. A further finding is that family commitments can change over short periods of time, such that workplace arrangements need to be suitably responsive.