Sandwich Generation Research Paper

In the U.S, one in four will be aged 60 years and older by 2050 (U.S. Census Bureau). This represents an overwhelming number of people who will either be in the caretaker role or be the ROC. Like today, most of the care will be provided by informal unpaid caregivers. The number of informal unpaid caregivers is expected to rise from 20 million in 2000 to 37 million in 2050 (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation [ASPE], 2003). Because of the burden of care giving, many caregivers will experience depression, poor health and quality of life (Etters, Goodall, & Harrison, 2008). Their well-being is an important public health concern.

More and more people are delaying marriage and child rearing. Over 20 million Americans are caught between their aging parents and young children. Adults who are part of the Sandwich Generation” are adults who have a parent that is living and 65 years old or older, but they are also raising a child under the age of 18.

The final stage is the “family in later life”. During this stage, individuals must accept the shifting of generational roles, as they become the grandparents. They must be able to let go of some power to their offspring as they find their new place in the family system. Dealing with this change while facing potential decline in health, financial security, and loss of spouse can be stressful. Grandparenthood can be a reward substitute (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988, p. 20).

Depending upon the person, the colossal amount of money already owed takes part in the financial decisions this person makes. Recently, the argument that the generation of people with all of this debt (the Millennials) and even the generation after them (X) are being affected by this debt in such a way that they are, “delaying major life milestones such as buying a home or saving for retirement…” (Chang) The meaning of this is to inform that these common milestones in life are not being reached. This stands as an important point because it will just be a continuous cycle of debt if these graduates cannot pay it off within their life time. Also, if they are not investing in their retirement--which they will eventually have to retire--there will be nothing to live off of when it comes to the time that they are no longer able to work. To counteract that, there is no proof that the college debt is what is holding these graduates back from attaining these major milestones. According to Matthews, “the problem is, there isn’t any proof that higher student loan debt is actually causing young people to own homes at lower rates than they did in the past, or that the overall student loan burden is leading to a smaller share of first-time home buyers. These trends could be cause by other factors, such as a cultural shift that has led young adults to delay all sorts of decisions, from buying a home, to marrying and having children.” (Matthews) Matthews expresses that there is no hard evidence to prove that it is the student loans that are cause the delay in the Millennials to doing such things as buying a house; it could simply just be the new “trend”. This is important in showing that there might not be a correlation between these graduates debt and buying a house (amongst other major milestones). To sum up, the debt these youngsters are in when they graduate is something that is

College student’s every day have to find a way to pay back loans, and debt inquired from their college years. Some have to work and go to school full time at the same time; so that college debt does not topple over an individual. Other’s focus just on solely school and rack up debt while financial aid pay’s for their schooling. There are a scholarship available if you are lucky enough to get them, to help ease the debt. Consequently, high tuition rates are making students draw out a tremendous amount of students for their schooling each year and the burden can fall on the child or the

“The vast majority of 18- to 29-year-olds polled — 84 percent — said adult children have a responsibility to provide financial assistance to an elderly parent if he or she needs it (Winerip).” This data just shows that the Millennials do realize that they owe the older generations for their success and that they aren’t against them. From the research done and the articles read, it can be shown that these two generations can work together if they both put their stubbornness aside to help the rising generation.

Take your hands and twist the off the peanut butter lid in a counterclockwise motion using force as necessary in order to remove the lid to the peanut butter from it’s original secured pattern. Take this lid and throw it to the side of the peanut butter jar. If there is any safety plastic material take your hand and peel off this plastic material until it has come off so that you can access the peanut butter inside of the jar. All material at this point that is not edible nor part of the actual jar can be discarded to the side of the jar.

Nevertheless, by 2050, there will be a dearth of formal and informal elder caregivers to administer assistance to the projected 88.5 million Americans age 65 and older who will require eldercare (Vincent & Velkoff 2010). In 2010, the “family caregiver support ratio” was seven potential caregivers for every person age 80 and older, who were in the high-risk care years (Vincent & Velkoff, 2010). Concurrently, it was the year the caregiver support ratio peaked and began an abrupt downturn, which will significantly impact demand for long-term eldercare support for older adults for decades to come (Redfoot, Feinberg, & Houser, 2013). Therefore, the pool of the family caregivers support ratio will begin to rapidly decline to 4 to 1 by 2030,

The National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) was established in 2000 and “provides grants to states and territories” “to fund a range of supports that assist family and informal caregivers to care for their loved ones at home for as long as possible” (AOA, 2012). Some statistics on caregivers are that twenty-two percent of caregivers care for two individuals, while eight percent of caregivers care for three or more individuals (AOA, 2012). Interestingly almost half of all caregivers are actually over the age of fifty years old, which makes them more vulnerable to their own decline in health (AOA, 2012).

Further national demographics shifts, such as deferred marriages and childbearing for young adults, reduced family size, and families living at a distance, are also exacerbating this dilemma. Additionally, increasing longevity among older adults will extend the years of assistance needed from their families as caregivers, including some grandchildren (Bookman & Kimbrel, 2011).

Throughout the United States, many people have trouble paying bills. Many people that enter college are around 18 to 34 years old, and in order to keep a stabilized relation with their money, it is easier not to go to college. “Two-thirds say a major reason for not continuing college is because of the necessity to be able to support a family”(Pew). Another reason that affects students very critically on their finance is student loans. Students leave college with a huge debt in their hands. Because of that reason, more than half say that

A favorite memory I had was when I was around 7 years old. My dad and I went to Lee's Sandwiches and I had my dad get me hot wings instead of a sandwich. After I got my wings (yum!), I left it on the table and followed my dad to the register again to pickup his sandwich. When we came back, the hot wings were gone and we saw a homeless man run away with it outside. My dad ran after him and quickly stopped him, and after I caught up with him, I saw the man apologizing and on the verge of tears. In the middle of his apology, my dad pulled out a $20 bill and handed it over to him, saying he should take it and keep the chicken wings. The man changed his tearful apology to an even more tearful thank you, but my dad just walked away. I never got another

In many families in our society today, the parents are a part of the sandwich generation and now are raising kids that are growing up to take part in the boomerang generation. The sandwich generation makes up of people who are in their thirties or forties that are trying to raise their own children while looking after their elderly parents. On the other hand, the boomerang generation consists of young adults who graduate high school and college to only come back and live with their parent and rely on their support. As a result of this, there comes many challenges for both the parents and the child since the sandwich generation is stuck in the conflicting nature of taking care of their elderly parents while providing for their children by meeting their needs of emotional love and providing tangible needs. However, many realize that their kids are entering into adulthood and now these parents face the challenge of pushing their children to be independent and take on responsibility while trying to secure a stable retirement.

In this article, Zarit and Reamy examine the future directions in family and professional caregiving for the elderly. They use two perspectives, caregiving, and professional caregiving, in order to identify the major issues that will come up about in the future. They looked in depth of where the problems could arise and came to a conclusion. They believe we need to expand the approaches others have taken for this topic and use “more dynamic approaches

Although medical advances have been tremendous in recent years in addressing several complications encountered as we get older, the compounding issues of the aging population have increased exponentially. At some point we have to decide whether the advantages of trying to stay alive longer outweigh natural life expectancy. How we deal with everything from housing to long-term medical care has escalated because the older population is growing significantly. In addition to taking care of aging parents, families are trying juggle dual working spouses and children in extracurricular activities. While having aging parents living with their children wasn’t unusual as little as two generations ago, the family dynamic has changed. Moreover, we