International Population Conference IUSSP 2017 Abstract submission - PDF document

International Population Conference IUSSP 2017 Abstract submission The provision of support towards multiple generations. How does the ‘sandwiched’ generation balance help towards their family? Authors: Jane Falkingham, Maria Evandrou, Madelin Gómez-León and Athina Vlachantoni ESRC Centre for Population Change and Centre for Research on Ageing Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton, UK Abstract With improving life expectancy, increasing female employment and changing patterns of family formation, the large generation of baby boomers currently entering mid and late life face the prospect of juggling multiple roles, combining paid work with unpaid care for both their older parents and support for their adult children and grandchildren. With an increasing number of families sharing more years of their life with multiple generations, there is a growing need to understand the pressures that individuals face in reconciling these multiple roles and how policy might respond to support them. This paper uses recent data from the 1958 National Child Development Survey, collected when respondents were aged 55, to examine how mid-life men and women distribute their time dedicated to provide help to their elderly parents and to their own adult children in terms of providing grandchild care, and whether there is a trade-off in provision of support between the competing demands of the different generations. Preliminary results show that around one third of mid-life individuals are ‘at risk’ of providing care to multiple generations, of whom half are providing care to both generations simultaneously and only one in ten are not providing any support to either generation. DRAFT. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHORS’ PERMISSION.

IUSSP2017. The provision of support towards multiple generations. Authors: Falkingham, Evandrou, How does the ‘sandwiched’ generation balance help towards their family? Gómez-León and Vlachantoni Extended abstract Introduction With improving life expectancy, increasing female employment and changing patterns of family formation, the large generation of baby boomers currently entering mid and late life face the prospect of juggling multiple roles, combining paid work with unpaid care for both their older parents and support for their adult children and grandchildren the so- called “sandwich generation” (Evandrou and Glaser, 2004; Fingerman et al., 2012). Over the past decade the prevalence of sandwiched individuals has been increasing (Rubin and White-Means, 2009; Wiemers and Bianchi, 2015; Williams, 2005), with evidence increasing support from this group towards individuals from multiple generations (Friedman et al., 2015). With an increasing number of families sharing more years of their life with multiple generations, there is a growing need to understand the pressures that individuals face in reconciling these multiple roles and how policy might respond to support them. To date, many of the studies on unpaid work have focussed only on women, reflecting the traditional female role of taking care of the family. However, those studies that have also analysed men’s caregiving behaviour have found evidence of their involvement, although at much lower intensity than women. For example, a study in the UK by Evandrou and Glaser (2002) has shown that there some men provide multiple care, and that when it comes to broader juggling of multiple roles, such as parenting, caring for elderly persons and paid employment, men’s involvement is in fact increasing by birth cohorts (Evandrou et al., 2002). Similarly, a recent study in the USA has shown that men have a similar prevalence of being involved in caring for multiple generations, although with less intensity (Friedman et al., 2015). Although the ‘sandwiched generation’ are now attracting increasing attention, with a number of recent studies in the US (Friedman et al., 2015; Wiemers and Bianchi, 2015) and Ireland (McGarrigle and Kenny, 2013), research in the UK remains sparse, with those studies that have addressed this area primarily using data from a decade or more ago (Evandrou and Glaser, 2002; Evandrou et al., 2002; Glaser et al., 2006; Grundy and Henretta, 2006). This research updates our knowledge on the current trends and profiles of the sandwich generation in the UK context, for both men and women, using data from the National Child Development Survey. In particular, we investigate the extent to which the provision of grandchild care affects the provision of support to older generations and vice versa, and examine the determinants of being a dual carer (towards both parents/parents-in-law and towards adult children, in the form of grandchild care provision) compared with caring for the younger or the older generation. The research investigates the multiple provision of help, towards the older generation (respondent’s parents/parents-in- law) and towards the younger generation (the respondents’ grandchild(ren)), by addressing the following questions: - How do mid-life men and women distribute their provision of help between their parents/ parents-in-law and the grandchildren? - Does providing help to one generation reduce the likelihood of helping the other generation? - Which are the socio-demographic characteristics that distinguish those supporting multiple generations from those who help only one generation or none of them? The first part of the paper address the first question by describing the profiles of the sandwich individuals and then the prevalence of providing support towards their parents/parents-in-law and/or their grandchildren, as well as the intensity of support provided by men and women. We then tackle our second research question where we test the hypothesis of family solidarity and competing demands by examining whether providing support to one generation could affect the likelihood of providing support to the other generation. We extend the research by addressing the last research question determining the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the sandwich generation that are associated with providing support for individuals from multiple generations compared with providing support for only one generation. Data and methodology The National Child Development Survey (NCDS) started with more than 17,000 children born in a single week in March 1958 in Great Britain. The cohort have then been followed up throughout the course of their lives at selected intervals, with the most recent data collection at age 55 in 2013. In 2013 the NCDS collected information on provision of help to parents and care provided to grandchildren from all respondents (N=9,137). Our main analytical sample comprises all individuals who were interviewed at 55, and were ‘at risk’ of providing multiple care (with at least one parent or parent- in-law alive as well as with at least one grandchild alive) and with no missing information on the co-variables included in the multivariate analysis, resulting in a final sub-sample of 2,426 individuals. DRAFT. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHORS’ PERMISSION. 1