March 4, 2007
 
Surprising Findings in Look at 'Sandwich Generation'
 
By H.J. Cummins
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
 
They're known as the "sandwich generation," spread -- sometimes thin -- between the needs of their parents and their children.
 
A new study sliced off one piece of the sandwich generation for a closer look: two-paycheck, middle-class couples with both child- and elder-care responsibilities -- a group representing up to 9.4 million American families.
 
Among the often surprising findings was the power of meaning over math, said Margaret Neal, co-author with Leslie Hammer of "Working Couples Caring for Children and Aging Parents."
 
Although they expected hard measures such as the number of children or hours spent in parent care, for example, to rule the stress levels, the researchers found instead that softer stuff -- basically how the couples felt about their work and their loved ones -- made much more difference, Neal said.
 
"In particular, having a good relationship with one's spouse protected their sense of well-being to a much larger extent than we expected," Neal said.
 
Also, they found feelings of satisfaction -- not just burden -- in many couples.
 
"A real strength of the analysis is that they look for the positives as well as the negatives, and find many of these," said Robert Drago, a professor of labor and women studies at Penn State University.
 
"And these are folks who live some of the most serious conflicts between work and family on a daily basis," Drago said.
 
The study, a survey of 309 couples, comes out of Portland State University in Oregon. Neal is director of the Institute on Aging there, and Hammer is a professor of psychology. Here are more of their findings:
 
Couples try so hard not to bring their family issues to work that they tend to err in the other direction, taking work stress home.
 
Even though they believe that caring for aging parents does hurt their work, many said they find it enormously satisfying. And one reason is that the support can be mutual, with the elder parents helping out with child care, finances or just time to talk.
 
Of all kinds of help, these couples were least likely to use the formal workplace programs such as on-site child care, resource and referral services, and support seminars. Like other studies, this one found that's often because employers don't offer them, or people worry about a career hit if they use them. But it's also because employees sometimes don't know they have the benefits. "You can be going along blithely, not needing any help, until you have a parent-care crisis," Neal said. "And if there'd been a flier about a support group a week earlier, you probably wouldn't have even read it."
 
Some couples' work and family lives changed dramatically over the year of research. For employers, that means the need for workplace supports may be brief, or an employee may need different kinds of support over time.
 
Overall, workplace supports helped employees' well-being.
 
"The reality is there are going to be times when our family responsibilities do interfere with our work," Neal said. "Work won't always go on 100 percent unaffected."
 
But, she asked, aren't good caretakers exactly the kind of responsible, loyal people employers should want?
 
"It's important to look at this over the long term," she said.
 
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.