Study of the Sandwich Generation

Half of all U.S. adults in their forties and fifties are members of “The Sandwich Generation.” A new study from the Pew Research Center found 47% have an aging parent and are raising a young child or provide support for an adult child. Study author Kim Parker says nearly 3-quarters of middle-aged parents said they had provided some form of financial support to a grown child in the past year. “Only about a third have given any financial support to the parent, so there is sort of a disconnect there in terms of where the resources are going, they tend to be going more toward the grown children than to the aging parent.” Parker said the study found the only place for younger adults to turn to for help is their parents. “It really brings home the point that there isn’t a safety net for young adults, not that there should be, but when they can’t find a job and when they can’t establish themselves financially, in many cases they are turning to their parents.” The study found young people cannot find work and those that do are not being paid very much, continues Parker. “Young people that did have a full-time job actually saw the biggest cuts in wages across different age groups, so a lot of them couldn’t find work and the ones that could find work where not necessarily being compensated at a level where they could support themselves.” Older adults seem better prepared to handle a financial crisis, adds Parker. “The older adults have weathered the financial difficulties a lot better and they do have their own personal savings and also the social safety net programs in place to support them financial, so they don’t have as great of a need.” There is a positive aspect to aging parents supporting adult kids, concludes Parker. “The folks that said that they were supporting their kids financial also report having closer emotional ties to their grown kids, so all of these connections that we are seeing may be building a different type of family dynamic.” One reason for more middle-aged parents providing financial support to grown children is that the Great Recession took more of a toll on younger adults than those in their retirement years, ages 65 and older.