Quality of Life Sandwich Generation: A Review of the Literature

The sandwich generation is referring to the people raising their children while having to care for their aging parents at the same time. This trend is increasing in numbers in recent years. A dual breadwinner paradigm resulted from the economic change which requires most families to have two incomes for their economic viability. Besides that, this working people also need to taking care their parent or parent in law due to lack of preparation of elderly age. This group of people is classified as 'sandwich generation'.Nowadays, between 1 out of 8 households with aged 30 or older is classified as dual-earner or sandwiched generation couples. The impact from multiple caregiving duties is inequalities in psychological, physical, employment, and financial outcomes of the family institution. It is possible that multi-generational caregiving responsibilities will continue to rise for the children of baby boomers as life expectancies continue to go up. People continue to have children later in life, and continue to support those children to older ages. The review of literature shows positive and negative benefits for the caregivers. Policy and clinical supports must be put into place to facilitate the highly necessary and valuable caregiving responsibilities of this population. In addition, the outcomes of the present study will spur the economic development and assist the development of health promoting programs in accordance to the local context. Besides that, it also provides guidelines to policy maker and health professionals in maintaining quality healthy lifestyles of the nation. Policy, health, and research implications are included.