Caught in the Middle: Understanding the Sandwich Generation in 2025

Millions of Americans are now finding themselves pulled in two directions—raising children while also caring for aging parents. Known as the Sandwich Generation, these individuals face the emotional, financial, and professional stress of managing multiple caregiving and parental roles at once. As life expectancy increases, and more people have children later in life, the number of adults in this group is only expected to grow. Plus, our children with special needs and chronic illnesses continue to increase.

The most recent data from 2024 and 2025 reveals the depth of this caregiving crisis—and what employers and society must do to respond.

Understanding the situation:

• 73 million baby boomers age 65 or older in 2030
• 1 in 31 children on autism spectrum
• 40% to 60% chronically ill children in U. S.

When parent and caregiving stress goes unrecognized, it doesn’t disappear, it grows. Burnout rises. Mental health declines. Productivity slips. Families suffer, and workplaces feel the effects through higher absenteeism, lower engagement, and turnover while cost for attracting, retaining, and retraining rises.

This has become an invisible crisis—one that’s slowly eroding the stability of both families and the workforce. Many businesses are still focused on immediate staffing or performance challenges, without realizing how parent and other caregiving responsibilities are driving these deeper trends.

How Big Is the Sandwich Generation?

According to the 2025 Caregiving in the U.S. report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, 29% of all caregivers—nearly one in three—are simultaneously caring for both children and an adult family member. For caregivers under the age of 50, this percentage jumps to 47%, showing how heavily younger working adults are being impacted.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023) also reports that 21% of eldercare providers—those supporting someone over the age of 65—are parents of children under 18. That’s approximately 7.8 million Americans caught in this dual caregiving role.

A separate study by Caring.com (2024) found that more than half of U.S. adults aged 25 and older who have a living parent will financially support that parent this year. Of those, three out of four are also supporting at least one child. This dual dependency puts a unique strain on these families' finances and time.

The Emotional and Financial Toll

Caring for multiple generations is more than a scheduling challenge—it’s a source of serious stress and financial strain. The New York Life Wealth Watch Survey (2023) found that nearly half of Sandwich Generation adults said they were unable to meet essential household expenses in the past year due to caregiving costs.

This caregiving burden averages over 77 hours per month, according to a study by the University of Michigan and the American Heart Association (2025). These caregivers reported higher levels of burnout, depression, and poor sleep compared to people who are only caring for one generation.

The 2024 State of Caregiving report from A Place for Mom found that 43% of surveyed caregivers fit the Sandwich Generation profile. Among these, 65% reported that they either reduced their work hours or left the workforce entirely due to caregiving demands.

Why the Sandwich Generation Is Growing

Several social and economic trends are driving the growth of this population:

1. Delayed Parenthood: Many adults are having children later in life, meaning they are still raising school-age children well into their 40s and 50s. This increases the overlap with aging parental care needs (American Heart Association, 2025).
2. Increased Life Expectancy: With more older adults living into their 80s and beyond, long-term caregiving responsibilities are becoming more common (AARP & NAC, 2025).
3. Rising Costs: The increasing expense of childcare, health care, and senior care makes it harder for families to outsource support, leaving caregivers to manage both roles alone (New York Life, 2023).

The Impact on Work and Career

Employers are beginning to feel the effects of Sandwich Generation stress. According to A Place for Mom (2024), two-thirds of Sandwich caregivers say they’ve had to modify or leave their jobs to keep up with caregiving demands. That has real implications for workplace productivity, absenteeism, and talent retention.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM, 2024) also reports that 42% of caregivers believe their caregiving duties have negatively affected their career progression.

What Employers and Communities Can Do

Supporting the Sandwich Generation isn’t just a compassionate gesture, it’s a business imperative. Here’s a start on implementing caregiver friendly policies and initiatives:

• Flexible Work Arrangements: Offer flexible schedules and remote work options to give parents and other caregivers control over their time.
• Caregiving Leave: Provide paid or unpaid leave that specifically addresses parent and caregiving—not just parental or medical leave.
• Care Navigation Services: Help employees find eldercare and childcare resources, including referrals, consultations, and subsidies.
• Cultural Awareness: Train managers to understand and support caregiving staff and reduce the stigma around discussing family responsibilities.
• Financial Wellness Support: Offer programs that address the economic strain of caregiving, including financial counseling or dependent care FSAs.

Begin the conversation within your organization—by recognizing the complexities of today’s caregiving crisis, implementing meaningful self-care and support programs, and learning how to engage parents and caregivers in ways that acknowledge and address their fears and realities in the workplace.

Conclusion

The Sandwich Generation isn’t a fringe group. It’s a growing segment of your workforce and your community. These individuals are at risk of burnout, career derailment, and financial instability—not because they’re uncommitted, but because they’re carrying an extraordinary load.

With nearly one-third of U.S. caregivers balancing responsibilities for both younger and older generations, now is the time for leaders and employers to respond. The data is clear: by offering thoughtful, caregiver-friendly policies and an empathetic culture, organizations can keep top talent, improve well-being, increase productivity, and support those doing some of the hardest work—often invisibly.

To learn more about implementing a caring work environment within your company’s budgetary restraints to retain and attract top talent, implement appropriate training programs, minimize absenteeism and presenteeism and much more contact cdowdy@caregivermentalwellness.com or visit our website to learn more about resources to implement a caregiver friendly work environment  https://caregivermentalwellness.com/business/.

Also, we provide a free resource on our website for a holistic-self-care training program for parents and other type caregivers to help minimize stress, worry, and help prevent burnout. Feel free to contact us at info@caregivermentalwellness.com, and we will provide you a digital flyer to send out to your staff to make them aware of the training, so they can watch on their own time. https://caregivermentalwellness.com/wbp/

The video library is for personal use only, and not for commercial. https://caregivermentalwellness.com/wbp/

We encourage you to share our website and resources with your staff—because many of them are parents and caregivers who quietly carry these responsibilities every day.

Most don’t share their struggles. They fear it could jeopardize their job, slow their career progression, or lead to judgment. These employees make up the “unseen” modern workforce—dedicated, capable individuals managing both professional and personal demands, often without acknowledgment or support.

To truly address the complexities shaping today’s workforce, it will take a top-down commitment and a cultural shift—one that looks through the lens of care and focuses on humanizing the workplace. When leaders embrace empathy and understand the realities their employees face, they create environments where people feel valued, supported, and able to thrive.

Companies with forward-thinking leadership and a genuine understanding of this social shift will be best positioned to retain talent, strengthen engagement, cut cost, and build resilient organizations for the future.

Author: Carolyn Dowdy, President

Workplace Wellness Strategist

Caregiver Mental Wellness, Inc.