Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
October 22, 2024
Summary:
Objective: This study identifies the prevalence of sandwich care, and describes demographic, socioeconomic, health, and care characteristics of sandwich carers compared with other care groups in the UK. Background: Delayed childbearing and increasing care needs mean that parenting young children may increasingly coincide with the need to provide adult care, leading to so-called ‘sandwich care’, but little is known about sandwich carers in the UK. Method: Using eleven waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2020), a large, nationally representative household panel survey in the United Kingdom, five care groups were derived based on information regarding provision of adult care and living with children aged under age 16 (N=81,057). The prevalence of these groups were shown across waves, then waves were pooled and multinomial regression models were used to show age-adjusted differences in demographic, socioeconomic, health and care characteristics across the five care groups. Results: 2% of the UK adult population provide sandwich care . Parents caring for someone in the generation above were generally employed in professional/managerial occupations and cared less intensively outside the household while parents caring for a disabled child or partner were disadvantaged in terms of education and income, and tended to care intensively inside the household. Conclusion: It is important to recognise circumstances of care groups are heterogenous when designing policies and practice to support family carers.
Published in
SocArXiv
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/pyfxg
Subjects
#578425