Well-being of the sandwich generation in selected European countries

Irena E. Kotowska, Warsaw School of Economics
Anita Abramowska-Kmon, Warsaw School of Economics
Wojciech Latkowski, Warsaw School of Economics

The paper focuses on relationships between support given to other people by individuals aged 50-69 years and their wellbeing/depression in the selected European countries. The study is based on the data for 16 European countries gathered in the 4th wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The wellbeing is operationalized by the use of the CASP-12 index and the depression by the EURO-D measure. Results of the estimation of linear regression models are in line with those described in the literature on wellbeing as well as in empirical research. The wellbeing increased with age, higher educated people had significantly higher wellbeing in comparison to those with low categories of education, while those with limitation in daily activities reported notably lower wellbeing than those without disability. The better subjective financial situation contributes to the higher wellbeing. People living with a partner in the same household were more satisfied with life than those living without a partner. Those engaged in work had significantly higher well-being than inactive ones. Support given to other adults regularly has reduced wellbeing of supporters compared with non-supporters. Contrary to that, persons caring for grandchildren have a higher wellbeing than those not providing support to others. The influence of support given to both up and down generations i.e. the so-called double burden of the analyzed population although insignificant, was negative, which means a reduced wellbeing of this subpopulation in comparison to those not supporting other people at all. The results confirmed a North-West and South-East division of Europe with respect to wellbeing of people aged 50-69 years as well. The modelling results for depression document a symmetric impact of explanatory variables used in the model.