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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, parents, or both children and parents.
Slowing growth in the trained labour force and increased competition for skilled workers (condensed from page 3).

The researchers make the interesting point that, although many previous studies have focussed upon the negative effects of combining work and family (work-family conflict) where engaging in one role makes engaging in another more difficult due to limited resources, thus creating strain, an alternative perspective is that there are beneficial effects of holding both work and family roles, such as increased energy. 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 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 both members of sandwiched couples to learn about the work and family accommodations made and coping strategies used to balance work and family life. This was followed up with telephone and mail surveys conducted, re-surveys one year later, additional focus groups and in-depth telephone interviews with selected sub-samples. The study found that when it came to wives:

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

When it came to husbands:
23% had refused or limited travel
17% reduced the number of hours 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 measures of 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.

Coping strategies include:

flexible work schedules
flexible workplace/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 due to responsibilities for children, and performance problems due to concern about one's children and one's parents. For husbands, work-family conflict was a significant predictor of performance problems resulting from concern about one's children.

Positive family-to-work spillover was related to life satisfaction for women, but not for men. Positive work-to-family spillover did not contribute to life satisfaction for either men or women.

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 increased job role rewards (eg 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 responsive within short time periods.