Juggling Health: The Effects of Being a Sandwich Carer across Different Care Regimes in Europe

Mariana Calderon-Jaramillo , Centre d'Estudis Demografics
Elisenda Rentería, Centre for Demographic Studies
Jeroen Spijker, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Mariona Lozano, CED, Centre for Demographic Studies
Maike van Damme, Centre d'Estudis Demografics (CED)
Anne McMunn, Professor of Social Epidemiology, University College London

Unprecedented gains in life expectancy and population ageing have sparked debates about older adults’ needs. Special attention is given to increasing care demands in contexts where care provided by family members seems to be the norm. In some cases, caring for older individuals might occur while individuals are also providing care for underage children. Those with this double care responsibility are known as “Sandwich carers”. Prior research has established links between caregiving and carers’ physical and mental health outcomes; however, evidence regarding the health of sandwich caregiving remains mixed and limited in cross-national scope. These health outcomes might vary depending on the availability of social care policies and services, as they can reduce or redistribute the burden posed on family carers. Using data from the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), this study analyses how individual and structural factors explain different physical and mental health outcomes among sandwich carers. The analytical sample includes 246,182 individuals from 22 European countries who were surveyed in 2020. Through multinomial multilevel methods, the study assesses how individuals’ sociodemographic characteristics and social care regimes, ranging from familialism to defamilialisation, might explain health outcomes across countries. This typology of social care regimes is based on previous evidence about public social services (cash and in-kind) provided to take care of older populations within the analysed countries. This study contributes to the discussions of health consequences of care provision and the considerations about the role that social policies have in supporting the well-being of Sandwich carers.

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 Presented in Session 104. Flash Session Caregiving Patterns, Determinants and Consequences