Dataset Information

The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations.

ABSTRACT: The lengthening of the amount of time adult children depend on their parents' support and rising longevity have pushed scholars to devote increasing attention to the phenomenon of older sandwich family generations. This brief report develops a descriptive portrait of the prevalence of being demographically and socially sandwiched in the population aged 50 or more years, in Europe. It is shown that the prevalence of social sandwiching is highly sensitive to the types of support utilized to operationalize the concept; also, differences between welfare and transfer regimes are significantly affected by different operationalizations. Next, the analyses highlight the dynamic nature of social sandwiching over the adult life cycle, and show that demographic events and the changing needs of older parents are the main drivers of moving in/out the status of socially sandwiched. Support to adult children is ubiquitous in all European societies. Among the pivot generation family solidarity prevails over competition, but children enjoy a strategic advantage when older parents are in good health.

SUBMITTER: Albertini M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9127010 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations.

Albertini Marco M Tur-Sinai Aviad A Lewin-Epstein Noah N Silverstein Merril M

European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie 20220224 2

The lengthening of the amount of time adult children depend on their parents' support and rising longevity have pushed scholars to devote increasing attention to the phenomenon of older sandwich family generations. This brief report develops a descriptive portrait of the prevalence of being demographically and socially sandwiched in the population aged 50 or more years, in Europe. It is shown that the prevalence of social sandwiching is highly sensitive to the types of support utilized to operat ...[more]

PMID: 35619741

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Project description:The values that people hold are linked to their economic performance. These links can be either direct or indirect, operating through moderating variables such as social network participation, interpersonal trust, trust in institutions, human capital, managerial skills and hours worked. In this paper these effects are studied using structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology applied to European Social Survey data from 28 European countries in 2018. Schwartz classification of values is used, distinguishing between Self-Enhancement (Power, Achievement), Openness to Change (Self-Direction), Conservation (Tradition, Security, Conformity) and Self-Transcendence (Universalism, Benevolence) values. It is found that Power has the strongest positive direct effect on economic performance, further strengthened by a positive indirect structural effect through hours worked. Self-Direction is indirectly positively linked to economic performance through higher managerial skills and hours worked. Tradition has a strong negative direct effect on economic performance. Security is indirectly negatively linked with economic performance, owing to its negative effects on interpersonal trust, management skills and hours worked. Some of the identified effects are context-dependent and vary across European welfare state regimes. For example, Power is statistically significantly linked to economic performance only in the liberal and conservative regime. Values promoted by respective welfare state regimes are not necessarily associated with higher incomes within those regimes, e.g., Tradition and Security values promoted in the conservative and Mediterranean regime are associated with lower incomes. These findings may lead to a range of policy implications, particularly in relation to the policies on immigration, demographics, the labor market, and work-life balance. Unfortunately, due to the cross-sectional character of the dataset, causal relations among the variables of interest could not be identified.

Project description:IntroductionWork and family trajectories develop and interact over the life course in complex ways. Previous studies drew a fragmented picture of these trajectories and had limited scope. We provide the most comprehensive study of early-to-midlife work-family trajectories to date.MethodsUsing retrospective data from waves 3 and 7 of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we reconstructed work-family trajectories from age 15 to 49 among almost 80,000 individuals born between 1908 and 1967 across 28 countries. We applied multichannel sequence and cluster analysis to identify typical trajectories and multinomial logistic regression models to uncover their social composition.ResultsThe results revealed six common trajectories. The dominant and therefore standard trajectory represents continuous full-time employment with having a partner and children. Women, the lower educated and persons from conservative and liberal welfare regimes are underrepresented in this trajectory, whereas men, higher educated people and those from social-democratic, Eastern European and Baltic welfare regimes are overrepresented. The other trajectories denote a deviation from the standard one, integrating a non-standard form of work with standard family formation or vice versa. Mothers in a stable relationship generally work part-time or not at all. When mostly in full-time employment, women are more likely to be divorced. Lower educated persons are less likely to have work-family trajectories characterized by full-time work and a non-standard family, yet more likely to be non-employed for large parts of their life with standard family formation. Younger cohorts are underrepresented in non-employment trajectories, but overrepresented in part-time employment trajectories along with a partner and children as well as full-time employment trajectories with divorce. Individuals from Southern European and liberal regimes are more likely to be non-working and self-employed partnered parents and those from social-democratic regimes are more likely to be full-time employed divorced parents. We also found pronounced gender differences in how educational level, birth cohort and welfare regime are associated with work-family trajectories from early to midlife.DiscussionOur findings highlight the socially stratified nature of earlier-life work-family trajectories in Europe. Potential implications for inequalities in later life are discussed.

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Dataset Information

The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations.

Publications

The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations.

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