Feeling the Squeeze

People often provide caregiving to other family members across the life course. “Sandwiched” caregiving, or caring for a child and aging parent at the same time, is a common form of combining care duties. However, adults share more years of life with many different family members due to population level demographic shifts in life expectancy and family formation. This shift means that multigenerational care, or providing for two or more different generations of family members simultaneously, may better reflect the reality of caregiving for contemporary cohorts of adults. Although there is strong public backing for providing supports to caregivers, current policies are often limited.