The Sandwich Generation: Mobile Views from Multicultural Milan

In countries such as Italy, where there is an ageing population and a decline in birth rates, a crucial question is how respective generations are coping/will cope in the future with expectations for care? A key issue is the ‘sandwich generation’. This refers to middle-aged persons caught between, or ‘sandwiched’ by caring for both ageing parents and their children simultaneously.

In Europe, including Italy, academic research has highlighted the sandwich generation issue as a health concern, as well as a socio-economic one – particularly for women, whose roles as primary caregivers stem from deeply entrenched societal and familial expectations (Brenna & Novi 2015). For example, the (mental) health effects that this ‘in-between’ or bridge-like status has on women (daughter) carers (Amirkhanyan AA, Wolf DA. 2006, Coe N., Van Houtven CH., 2009), and the potential for anxiety and depression, relating to the emotional strain, lack of personal time, financial burdens and the general conflict created by carrying out multiple care roles (Barnett RC, Marshall NL, Singer JD. 1992).

Within my project, which focuses upon domestic and international migration, these issues are complicated by having to also take into account human mobility, and what happens when forms of care diversify across time and space, perhaps incurring physical remoteness, but also in some cases, new found digital intimacies?

Deidre McKay’s work (2012, 2016) is a compelling example of the complexities of care practices in transnational/migrant contexts. Within the global networks of Filipino migrant care workers studied over a number of years in the UK, McKay discovered what she terms an ‘archipelago’ (2016) of care practices taking place on– and offline. The concept helps explain how people create a sense of stability for themselves and their loved ones through practices of care exchange and co-operation within the acute circumstances of uncertainty that accompany migration.

With the communities I am working among in a ‘superdiverse’ (Vertovec 2006) neighbourhood of Milan, I am similarly exploring transnational webs of digital caregiving, particularly with respect to smartphones. I am seeing how people routinely traverse physical and digital attention, presence, and care, through social practices – from videocalling parents and grandparents in the park, to negotiating school or hospital lifts, to ordering home-delivered food. All of this is providing much food for thought as I slowly peel back the layers of the sandwich.

References

Amirkhanyan AA, Wolf DA. (2006). Parent care and the stress process: Findings from panel data, The Journals of Gerontology Series B-Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 61(5): 248–255.

Barnett RC, Marshall NL, Singer JD. (1992). Job Experiences Over Time, Multiple Roles, and Women’s Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62: 634-644.

Brenna, E., and Novi, C, D. (2015). ‘Is Caring for Elderly Parents Detrimental to Women’s Mental Health? The Influence of The European North-South Gradient.’ Healthy Ageing and the Labour Market (HALM) Working Paper 1.

Coe N., Van Houtven CH., 2009. Caring for Mom and Neglecting Yourself? The Health Effects of Caring for an Elderly Parent, Health Economics 18: 991-1010

Chisholm, J. F. (1999). The Sandwich Generation. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 8(3), 177-180.

Riley, L, D and Bowen, C. (2005). ‘The Sandwich Generation: Challenges and Coping Strategies of Multigenerational Families’. The Family Journal: Counselling and Therapy for Couples and Families. Vol 13., No.2. Pp.52-58

Rubin RM, White-Mean SI. (2009). Informal Caregiving: Dilemmas of Sandwiched Caregivers. J Fam Econ Iss 30:252–267.

McKay, D. (2012). Global Filipinos: Migrants’ Lives in the Global Village. Indiana University Press.

McKay, D. (2016). An Archipelago of Care: Filipino Migrants and Global Networks. Indiana University Press.

Vertovec, S. (2007). ‘Superdiversity and its Implications’ in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 30, Issue 6: New Directions in the Anthropology of Migration and Multiculturalism.