Monthly Labor Review September 2006 3

‘

The ‘sandwich generation’: women

caring for parents and children

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey are used to estimate

the number and characteristics of women 45 to 56 years old

who care for both their children and their parents;

these women transfer a significant amount of money

to their children and time to their parents

Charles R. Pierret

Charles R. Pierret is

Director of

Longitudinal

Surveys, Office of

Employment

and Unemployment

Statistics,

Bureau of Labor

Statistics.

The views expressed in

this article

are those of the

author and do not

necessarily reflect the

position of

the Bureau of Labor

Statistics or

Department of Labor.

E-mail:

Pierret.Charles@bls.gov

The term “sandwich generation” has become

increasingly common in the United States

over the last two decades. In a collective

sense, the term has been used to describe the

middle-aged generation who have elderly parents

and dependent children.1 In the individual sense,

the term describes people who are squeezed

between the simultaneous demands of caring for

their aging parents and supporting their dependent

children. This article uses the term in the individual

sense and estimates how many women 45 to 56

years old are part of the sandwich generation based

on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of

Young Women (NLSYW). It examines demographic

characteristics of these women and the type and

amount of support they give to their children

and parents.

The size of the sandwich generation depends

on how one defines it. An AARP report found that

44 percent of 45- to 55-year-olds had both at least

one living parent and one child under age 21. Only

7 percent of 45- to 55-year-olds, however, lived in a

household containing three generations; usually

oneself, one’s parents or in-laws, and one’s

children.2

 Support, of course, can mean something

other than co-residence. Parents may provide

financial support to their nonresident children for

college expenses, the purchase of a home, or just

as gifts. They may also provide help with childcare

or household errands. Adult children can likewise

help their elderly parents with personal care or

errands, or with financial assistance, even if they

do not live together.

In a sense, the sandwich generation is not a new

phenomenon. Elderly or infirm parents historically

have been cared for by their children, often within

the child’s home. The increased attention to the

sandwich generation in recent years probably has

its roots in many demographic trends.3

 As life

expectancy increases, more middle-aged people

tend to have parents who are still alive. Additionally, these parents probably have fewer

children, so there might be fewer siblings with

whom to share the burden. Adult children are more

likely to live further from their parents, making

decisions about caregiving more complicated and

disruptive. Women are having children at later ages,

so their parents are older, but their children are still

young. Support for children might last longer than

the support received by their parents’ generation,

often reaching into the early and even mid-20s

as they attend college and establish their own

households. Women are more likely to work outside the home, making it increasingly difficult to

provide additional caregiving services. Interest

in these problems is undoubtedly due to the fact

that they are being experienced by the babyboom generation, a group that, by its sheer size,

garners a large amount of media attention.

This article determines what proportion of

middle-aged American women can be classified

as part of the sandwich generation. Using data

from the NLSYW and its 1997 and 1999 sections

on intrafamily transfers (that is, money or hours

provided to another family member), this article

provides estimates based on various definitions

 The ‘Sandwich Generation’"
4 Monthly Labor Review September 2006

The ‘Sandwich Generation’

of membership in the sandwich generation. It concludes that,

depending on our definition, somewhere between 1 percent and

33 percent of 45- to 56-year-old women are simultaneously caring

for their parents and their children. The preferred estimate is that

9 percent of these women are giving a significant amount of care

to both their children and their parents, and can be termed

members of the sandwich generation.

Data

The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS), sponsored by the U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, are a set of surveys designed to gather

information at multiple points in time on the labor market activities

and other significant life events of several demographic groups

of men and women.4 The Young Women’s cohort was started in

1968, with 5,159 women ages 14 to 24 as of December 31, 1967.

Originally designed to include 5 annual interviews, the survey

was conducted 22 times before it was discontinued in 2003. In

1999, the “Young Women” were 45 to 56 years old and were

interviewed for their 20th time. The retention rate 31 years after

the initial interview was 58.4 percent of those respondents who

were still living. In general, respondents participated in 1-hour

personal interviews. The questions have always focused on

labor market activity, but this has generally been interpreted

in a very broad sense to include any activities that affect or

are affected by one’s participation in the labor market. Thus,

questions on education and training, child care, marriage and

fertility, household composition, attitudes and expectations,

criminal activity, government assistance programs, and other

topics have complemented the extensive labor market information gathered from survey respondents.

In 1996, NLS management designed a section of the NLSYW

questionnaire devoted to transfers of time and money among

family members. The idea was to explore the web of connections linking respondents to their parents and adult children.

Ultimately, the section proved longer than the 15 minutes

available for its administration. Therefore, the questionnaire

designers split the section into two parts. In the first, administered

in the 1997 survey, respondents were asked about transfers to

their parents. The second part, asked in 1999, focused on relations with the respondent’s adult children.

The 1997 parent section begins with an enumeration of a

respondent’s parents,5 either living or deceased, and those of

her husband. For each of these parents, information about

age, health, and residence is also collected. Respondents then

provide information about the financial situation of their

parents by answering questions about parental income and

the net worth of the parents’ assets. After this basic background information is collected, the 1997 survey collects

extensive data about the amount of time and money the

respondent spends assisting living parents and parents-in-law.6

This could involve up to four separate households if both a

respondent’s parents and her in-laws were no longer living

together. Transfers were considered at the level of the married

couple. Thus, all transfers from the respondent or her husband

to a parent or his/her spouse were reported as one amount.

Questions about time transfers asked about two types of

assistance: help with personal care (defined in the survey as help

with dressing, eating, cutting hair, or any other care involving

the body) and help with household chores and errands (activities

such as house cleaning, yard work, cooking, house repairs, car

repairs, shopping, and trips to doctors). Respondents first

reported whether they had spent any time in the past 12 months

helping each parent with each type of assistance, and if so, the

number of hours over the past 12 months they had spent helping

each parent. Questions about financial assistance included

information on loans, gifts with a total value of more than $100,

and other financial support, such as paying bills or expenses

without the expectation of being paid back.

 To capture complementary information about intergenerational transfers in the opposite direction, the 1999 survey asked Young Women about transfers involving their

children, including biological, step-, and adopted children.

Demographic data, including gender, age or date of birth, highest

grade completed, marital status, presence and age of any

children, relationship to the respondent, and residence, were

collected for each child. Each respondent was then asked

about time and money transfers to her adult children, those

ages 19 and older and those ages 14 to 18 who were married or

had a child.7

 These questions were similar to the parental

questions asked in 1997, though chores and errands were broken

out separately and an additional category for assisting with

childcare was asked if the respondent had reported that the child

had children. On the financial assistance side, questions about

college attendance and support for college in the last 12 months

were added to the 1997 questions regarding loans, gifts, and

other financial assistance.

Unfortunately, some of the rich detail of these data cannot be

used in the analysis of who is a member of the sandwich

generation. This analysis aggregates assistance to all parents

and to all children, reporting total assistance from the

respondents both up and down the generations, but not distinguishing among the recipients of this assistance (for

example, parents versus in-laws). It also does not separate

time or money transfers by type, examining total time spent

assisting parents, for example, but not how much of that time

is spent on personal care or running errands. Only the group

that is identified as members of the sandwich generation is

examined using the type of transfers and the detailed contextual variables that are part of the NLSYW data.

There are two caveats to this study that should be mentioned

at the outset. First, when weighted, the NLSYW data are nationally

representative of the target population—women who were 14

to 24 on December 31, 1967 and resided in the United States at
Monthly Labor Review September 2006 5

Support for parents. Consider first the relationship between

respondents and their parents. The top panel of table 1 presents

the percentage of women ages 43 to 54 when interviewed in 1997

having from 0 to 4 living parents (including own parents and

parents-in-law). More than 18 percent of these women have no

living parents. Not surprisingly, younger women and married

women have more parents; more than 15 percent of married

women 43 to 48 still had all four of their parents and in-laws alive,

compared with 5.8 percent of married women 49 to 54. The second

panel of table 1 shows the number of parental households with

which these women are related. Having parents who are not

sharing a household may increase the stress and complexity of

giving care to your parents, and may introduce stepparents into

the equation. Almost half of all women in this group have only

one parental household with which to contend, and less than 3

percent have more than 2.

Although more than 80 percent of all women in this age group

have at least one parent, the level of support for their parents

varies greatly. At the upper end, slightly more than 3 percent of

women in this age group have at least one parent living with

them. (See table 2.) Almost 8 percent have a parent living in a

supported-living or nursing facility. In terms of financial support,

more than 25 percent of women gave at least $200 of support to

their parents in the previous year and 6.2 percent gave more than

$1,000 in support. This latter group’s average expenditure in

support of their parents was $2,716 for the year. More than onefifth of women spent more than 100 hours during the previous

year assisting their parents with personal care, household chores,

or errands. Almost 10 percent spent more than 500 hours (almost

10 hours a week) helping parents. This group averaged 1,605

hours (more than 30 hours a week) of support during the year.

As table 2 shows, support for one’s parents comes in many

different forms, and the number of women supporting their

parents depends on the definition of “support.” The most

inclusive definition counts a woman as supporting her parents if

she had a co-resident parent or a parent in a supported living or

nursing facility, or if she gave $200 or 100 hours to her parents.

By this definition, almost 45 percent of women could be said to

be supporting their parents. A more restrictive definition, shown

in the last row of table 2, estimates that 15.6 percent of women

aged 43 to 54 years old either shared a residence with a parent,

gave their parents $1,000 or more, or spent 500 hours or more

helping their parents with personal care, household chores, or

errands. On average, this group gave $1,124 to their parents and

spent 1,008 hours helping them. It is apparent that a sizable

minority of women in this age group are spending a lot of time

and money supporting their parents.

Support for children. The other side of the sandwich

generation reports on the support given to their children. Only 1

in 6 women in aged 45 to 56 reported having no living children.9

Two is the modal number of children; about 10 percent of

the time of screening in 1966. Unfortunately, this excludes

immigrants in this age range who immigrated after 1966. There is

some evidence that this group may be more likely to be giving

assistance to both their parents and children.8

 Longitudinal

studies have a difficult time tracking changes to the population

that occur after the screening period. It must be remembered that

this analysis is about women in the target population, not all

women in the United States.

Second, because of the structure of the questionnaire,

respondents report on transfers to parents 2 years before they

report on transfers to their children. The reported transfers are

not as simultaneous as one might hope. Implicit is the assumption

that transfers are ongoing, that transfers reported in 1997 were

likely to have also taken place in 1999. Though perhaps a heroic

assumption, it is a necessary one because of the available data.

Analysis

Membership in the sandwich generation implies that one’s

parents and one’s children are simultaneously dependent on

oneself. Dependence, of course, is a matter of definition. The

NLSYW allows us to vary the definition of dependence and

estimate the number of American women between the ages of

45 and 56 who have relationships with their parents or children

that meet the various thresholds.

Total .......................... 18.4 30.1 30.0 14.2 7.4

Married .................. 11.3 24.6 31.8 21.3 11

43–48 .................. 7.8 18.9 31.9 26.1 15.2

49–54 .................. 15.6 31.7 31.6 15.3 5.8

Unmarried .............. 32.7 41 26.3 ... ...

43–48 .................. 23.5 42.7 33.8 ... ...

49–54 .................. 43.3 38.9 17.8 ... ...

 Number of parent households

 Total ......................... 18.4 46.3 32.6 2.6 0.1

Married .................. 11.3 37.7 46.9 3.9 .2

43–48 .................. 7.8 32.1 54.1 5.5 .6

49–54 .................. 15.6 44.6 37.9 1.8 .0

Unmarried .............. 32.7 63.4 .4 ... ...

43–48 .................. 23.5 70.8 5.8 ... ...

49–54 .................. 43.3 54.8 1.9 ... ...

SOURCE: National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1997.

Number of parents

Marital status

01 2 3 4

01 2 3 4

Table 1. Percent of 43- to 54-year-old women in 1997

with specified number of living parents and

parent households, by marital status and age
6 Monthly Labor Review September 2006

The ‘Sandwich Generation’

women have more than four children. The following tabulation

shows the number of living children reported by women aged

45 to 56 in 1999:

Number of children Percent of women

0 ......................................... 16.6

1 ......................................... 14.5

2 ......................................... 31.9

3 ......................................... 17.9

4 ......................................... 9.2

5 ......................................... 4.6

6 or more ...................................... 5.2

There are a number of ways in which parents support their

children. Almost half (46.2 percent) of these women have children

living with them. (See table 3.) Few of these women, however,

have young children in their household; 1.6 percent have children

under 7 and 11.0 percent have children under 14. A third of

women in this age range have at least one of their children in

college, 11 percent have a child who is attending college living

with them, and almost one-fifth provide financial support to their

children who are attending college. This support is quite

substantial, averaging $8,900.

Financial support of one’s children is much more common

than other assistance. Almost 40 percent of women gave their

children $200 or more during the year; about three times the

percentage of women who gave assistance of more than 100

hours. The level of financial assistance to children is much higher

than it is to parents. On the one hand, more than 25 percent of all

women gave $1,000 or more during the year to their children,

compared with 6 percent who gave this much support to their

parents. And the average amount each of these heavy givers

gave to their children was more than $6,700, compared with an

average $2,700 given to parents. On the other hand, more women

gave at least a low level of time assistance to their parents than to

their children. The percentage of women who gave at least 100

hours of assistance to their parents was more than 50 percent

greater than the percentage who gave this much assistance to

their children (21.8 percent, versus 13.9 percent), though the

percentage giving more than 500 hours to children was about the

same as those giving 500 hours to their parents. Still, it appears

that assisting children is a more capital intensive activity, whereas

assisting parents is generally more labor intensive.

It is obvious that women in this age group are still very

involved with raising their children. Two-thirds of these women

had children in their household, were supporting children at

college, or were giving at least $200 or 100 hours to help their

children. Including college expenses, the amount of support that

middle-age women gave to support their children averaged

$5,410 in financial support and 268 hours of assistance in

childcare, personal care, errands, or household chores. Even

restricting this group further by requiring that children in the

household be under 21, or that support be greater than $1,000 or

500 hours, we still find more than 55 percent of women between

45 and 56 meet this threshold of assistance to their children.

Again, their average contribution is quite substantial—almost

$6,500 and more than 6 hours a week of taking care of children,

performing personal care, running errands, or helping with

household chores.

Simultaneous support. Membership in the sandwich

generation is defined as simultaneously giving assistance to both

parents and children. Table 4 shows the percentage of 45- to 56-

year-old women who are part of the sandwich generation based

on various criteria. The strictest definition, in which both parents

and children must be co-resident, is a fairly small group. Only a

little more than 1 percent of women in this age group have both

parents and children living with them. If we also include in the

definition, children who are away at college, the group expands

only slightly, from 1.1 percent of 45- to 56-year-old women to

1.2 percent. It is still not very common for women in this age

group to be living with both their parents and their children.

It is common, however, for these women to be supporting their

children and parents simultaneously in less dramatic ways. More

than one-fifth of women gave either $200 or 100 hours of their

time to both their parents and their children. If we add to this

definition, women whose parents are co-resident or in a supported

nursing facility, and those whose children are co-resident or who

are being supported at college, fully one-third of women in this

age group could be classified as belonging to the sandwich

generation. A stricter definition such as that in the last row of

table 4, seems to capture the spirit of dependence better: support

for parents is defined as either co-residence, $1,000 of financial

Percent of 43- to 54-year-old women in 1997

giving specified support to parents

One or more co-resident parent .... 3.2 – –

One or more parent in support

 facility ........................................ 7.8 – –

Gave parents $200 or more ........ 27.4 $936 –

Gave parents $1,000 or more ..... 6.2 $2,716 –

Helped parents for 100 hours

 or more ...................................... 21.8 – 759

Helped parents for 500 hours

 or more ...................................... 9.3 – 1,605

Had co-resident parent, parent

 in support facility, gave parent

 $200 or more, or helped parent

 for 100 hours or more ............... 44.9 $557 405

Had co-resident parent, gave

 parent $1,000 or more, or helped

 parent for 500 hours or more .... 15.6 $1,124 1,008

SOURCE: National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1997.

Table 2.

Type of support

Percent

of

women

Average

contribution

 (in hours)

Average

contribution

 (in dollars)
Monthly Labor Review September 2006 7

aid or 500 hours of other assistance, and support for children

is defined as co-residence of a child under age 21, support in

college, $1,000 of financial aid, or 500 hours of other

assistance. By this definition, about 9 percent of all 45- to 56-

year-old women are simultaneously supporting both their

parents and children, and would be included in the sandwich

generation.

The sandwich generation

Who are these 9 percent of 45- to 56-year-old women who

make up the sandwich generation? Table 5 compares women

in the sandwich generation with those of the same age who

are not.

 Sandwich-generation women are more likely to be married

and out of the labor force and to have much greater income than

other women of their same age. This probably reflects both

opportunity and ability to support extended family members.

Married women are more likely to have living parents (including

in-laws) and children, and are less likely to be in the labor force.

They have higher family incomes which provide the means to

support family members financially and the ability to work less to

offer nonfinancial assistance. In fact, after controlling for family

income in a linear probability model,10 marriage is no longer a

significant determinant of membership in the sandwich

generation—only income and being out of the labor force are

significantly correlated with sandwich generation membership.

Another question is, “What types of support do the women

in the sandwich generation provide to their children and

parents?” One simple way of looking at this issue is to identify

the type of support given to each group by these women11 as

shown in table 6. As we have seen, these women tend to give

financial support to their children, but give personal or household

care to their parents. Almost a third of these women qualify as

members of the sandwich generation based on this pattern of

support. Very few women qualify simply by supplying a place to

live. Their involvement in the lives of their children and parents

runs much deeper than that.

Percent of 45- to 56-year-old women in 1999

giving specified support to children

Child in the household ............... 46.2 ... ...

Child under 7 in the household .. 1.6 ... ...

Child under 14 in the household . 11 ... ...

Child under 21 in the household . 31.9 ... ...

Child in college .......................... 33.7 ... ...

Child living in household while

 in college ................................ 11.4 ... ...

Financially supporting child

 (children) while in college ...... 19.2 $8,900 ...

Gave children $200 or more ..... 39.4 $4,856 ...

Gave children $1,000 or more .. 27.4 $6,762 ...

Helped children for 100 hours

 or more ................................... 13.9 1,282 ...

Helped children for 500 hours

 or more ................................... 9 1,843 ...

Had co-resident child,

 supported child in college,

 gave children $200 or more, or

 helped children for 100

 hours or more ......................... 67.1 $5,410 268

Had co-resident child under 21,

 supported child in college,

 gave children $1,000 or more,

 helped children for 500 hours

 or more ................................... 55.6 $6,467 315

SOURCE: National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1999.

Table 3.

Type of support Percent

Average

contribution

 (in hours)

Co-residence ......................................................................................... Co-residence .............................................................................. 1.1

Co-residence ......................................................................................... Co-residence or support for college .......................................... 1.2

Aid of $200 or more ............................................................................... Aid of $200 or more ................................................................... 14.2

Aid of 100 hours or more ...................................................................... Aid of 100 hours or more ........................................................... 4.1

Aid of $200 or 100 hours or more ......................................................... Aid of $200 or 100 hours or more ............................................. 21.9

Aid of $1,000 or more ........................................................................... Aid of $1,000 or more ................................................................ 2.7

Aid of 500 hours or more ...................................................................... Aid of 500 hours or more ........................................................... 1.4

Aid of $1,000 or 500 hours or more ...................................................... Aid of $1,000 or 500 hours or more .......................................... 6.2

Co-residence, in support facility, or aid of $200 or 100 hours Co-residence, support in college, or aid of $200 or 100 hours

or more ............................................................................................... or more .................................................................................... 33.1

Co-residence under 21 years old, support in college, or aid

Co-residence, or aid of $1,000 or 500 hours or more .......................... of $1,000 or 500 hours or more .............................................. 9.0

SOURCE: National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, 1997 and 1999.

Table 4.

Level of support for—

Percent

Parents Children

Percent of 45- to 56-year-old women in 1999 simultaneously giving specified support to children and parents

Average

contribution

 (in dollars)
8 Monthly Labor Review September 2006

The ‘Sandwich Generation’

Table 7 breaks down support by the number of sandwich

generation members providing it and the average level of that

support. The level of support is striking. Almost 40 percent of

this group is supporting children at college, with an average

contribution of more than $10,000. More than 80 percent are

spending an average of 23 hours a week helping their parents

or in-laws, and almost 30 percent are spending an average of

26 hours helping their children. Eighty percent are

contributing money other than college support to their

children and more than 70 percent are contributing money to

their parents. These amounts average $6,263 and $1,521

respectively. All told, this group transfers an average of

$10,000 and 1,350 hours annually to help their children and

parents.

The bulk of financial transfers from the sandwich generation go to children, not to parents. Including support for

college, these women give on average more than six times as

much money to their children as to their parents. However,

almost all transfers of money to parents are gifts; in comparison, almost one-quarter of the total value of money transfers to children by this group takes the form of loans. The

children of these women are predominantly in their teens and

twenties, and attempting to establish themselves in their adult

lives. They should eventually be able to pay back any loans

they are given by their parents. These women’s parents, on

the other hand, are elderly. If they need financial help, they may

have no means of ever paying it back. Those in the sandwich

generation may also see this as a way of paying back what their

parents had given them in earlier times.

A sizeable group of women spends an average of 28 hours

a week providing childcare, most likely for their grandchildren,

while their own children work or attend school. A smaller

group (5.9 percent of sandwich generation women) provides

an average of 22 hours a week on personal care for their children, perhaps due to the child’s disability or injury. Thus,

around 2 percent of all women in this age range provide such

personal care or childcare while providing substantial help to

their own parents or in-laws.

Mean and standard error of selected

characteristics of sandwich-generation women

versus other 45- to 56-year-old women

Age ....................................................... 50.3 50.3

Standard error ......................................... (.223) (.065)

Married ..................................................... .775 .661

Standard error ......................................... (.028) (.010)

Out of the labor force ............................. .278 .237

Standard error ......................................... (.030) (.009)

Family income in 1999 (in thousands) .... $114.7 $67.9

Standard error ......................................... (6.0) (1.3)

Education (years) .................................... 14.0 13.7

Standard error ......................................... (.165) (.065)

Black ....................................................... .094 .110

Standard error ......................................... (.020) (.006)

Table 5.

Variable

Sandwich

generation

Other

women

Type of support to children, versus type of

support to parents from women in the

sandwich generation

Total ...................................... ... 3.4 39.7 57.0

Co-residence or college support

only ....................................... 27.8 .3 12.2 15.4

Support of $1,000 or more ....... 57.6 2.4 23.8 31.3

Support of 500 hours or more .. 14.6 .7 3.7 10.3

Support to children $1,000

or

more

500

hours

or more

Coresidence

only

Total

Support to parents

Co-residence ......................................... 47.3 ... ... 13.5 ... ...

College support (dollars/ year) ............. 38.3 $3,852 $10,057 ... ... ...

Time (hours/year)1 ................................. 29.3 395 1,348 80.4 973 1,210

Personal care ....................................... 5.9 68 1,153 53.4 522 978

Household chores and errands ........... 14.3 117 818 73.9 512 693

Child care ............................................. 20.0 280 1,400 ... ... ...

Money (dollars/year) ............................. 80.7 $5,054 $6,263 73.7 $1,121 $1,521

Loans ................................................... 32.2 $1,192 $3,702 .6 $1 $167

Gifts ..................................................... 79.4 $3,578 $4,506 71.5 $857 $1,199

Other .................................................... 24.6 $283 $1,150 20.1 $264 $1,313

Table 7.

To children

Average if

greater than

zero

Type of support Percent

giving

Type of support given by women of the sandwich generation to their children and parents

To parents

Percent

giving

Average if

greater than

zero

Average

amount

Average

amount

1 Maximum time support is truncated at 4,380 hours per year (12 hours

per day) for individual elements and the total. Therefore, the sum of the

individual items may be greater than the total.

Table 6.
Monthly Labor Review September 2006 9

Conclusion

The NLSYW provides data on transfers of time and money to

both parents and children for a representative group of middleaged American women. It shows a high degree of connection

between women in this age group and other family members,

especially their children. Almost half have children living with

them, and the 55 percent of these women who give a high level of

support to their children—living with them, supporting them in

college, or giving them more than $1,000 or 500 hours of

assistance—average more than $6,400 of financial support, a

figure that represents more than 10 percent of median family

income. Help to parents comes more often in the form of assistance in running errands, doing household chores, or helping

with personal care.

 From these data, we find that the size of the sandwich

generation—those simultaneously helping parents and children—depends on what definition we choose to adopt. Having

both one’s parents and one’s children in the household is fairly

rare—about 1 percent of all women in this age group experience

this three-generation household. But one-third of all women offer

some help to both their parents and children. Defining the

sandwich generation as aiding children with either co-residence,

support for college, or transfers of more than $1,000 or 500 hours

and simultaneously aiding parents with co-residence or similarlysized transfers implies that 9 percent of women between ages 45

and 56 are part of the sandwich generation.

The members of the sandwich generation are wealthier and

more likely to be married and out of the labor force than other 45-

to 56-year-old women. On average, they spend $10,000 and 1,350

hours each year helping their children and parents. For the

economy as a whole, these women represent important resource

flows. With roughly 20 million American women in this age group,

members of the sandwich generation are responsible for

intrafamily transfers on the order of $18 billion and 2.4 billion

hours each year.

Notes

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The author would like to thank Alison

Aughinbaugh, Anne Polivka, and Jim Spletzer for their comments and

Sasha Eidelman for research assistance. An earlier draft of this article

was presented at the United Nations Economic Commission on Europe

Workshop on Gender Statistics.

1 Russell A. Ward and Glenna Spitze, “Sandwiched Marriages: The

Implications of Child and Parent Relations for Marital Quality in Midlife,”

Social Forces, vol. 77, no. 2, 1988, pp. 647–66.

2

 “In the Middle: A Report on Multicultural Boomers Coping with

Family and Aging Issues,” AARP, Washington, DC, July 2001.

3

 Steven K. Wisensale, “Toward the 21st Century: Family Change and

Public Policy,” Family Relations, vol. 41, no. 4, 1994, pp. 417–22.

4

 The discussion that follows borrows quite liberally from the

National Longitudinal Surveys Young Women Users’ Guide 2001

(Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001).

5

 Respondents were asked to identify their parents (parents-in-law)

by naming the male and female individuals who “played the most

important role in raising you (your husband).” This might miss certain

important parental relationships (for example, biological fathers when

one was raised by a stepfather, or stepmothers who married one’s

father later in life and have survived him), but this limitation was

necessary within the structure of the questionnaire.

6

 The survey also collected transfers from parents and in-laws, but

this analysis does not use those data.

7

 If a respondent had more than five adult children, she was asked

about transfers collectively rather than child-by-child. As in the 1979

survey, transfers from the children were also collected.

8

 “In the Middle,” AARP, 2001.

9

 This includes biological, adoptive, and stepchildren.

10 The results are not shown here.

11 When support included both significant amounts of time and

money, the more important activity was determined by whether the

dollar amount of support was more or less than twice the number of

hours of support.