Working Couples Caring for Children and Aging Parents: Effects on Work and Well-Being

As the baby boomer generation approaches midlife, many dual-earner couples are struggling with issues of simultaneously caring for children while tending to aging parents. This timely book uncovers the circumstances faced by these workers, known as the "sandwiched generation", and identifies what they need in order to fulfill their work and family responsibilities. Authors Margaret B. Neal and Leslie B. Hammer suggest the workplace as an arena for change, proposing that it adapt to the situations of today's workers by providing flexibility and understanding the needs and priorities of families. Based on a four-year national study funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,Working Couples Caring for Children and Aging Parentsexamines: *employer and governmental initiatives affecting work and family life in the United States; *supports provided to working caregivers in countries other than the United States; *the effects of being "sandwiched" on work-family fit, well-being, and work; and *changes in work and family roles and outcomes over time. This book will interest a broad audience, including students, policymakers, family care practitioners, IO psychologists, work-life professionals, gerontologists, sociologists, human resource managers, and occupational health psychologists.

Margaret B. Neal is director of the Institute on Aging and Professor of Community Health in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University. Previously, she was the founding director of the university’s Survey Research Laboratory. Dr. Neal teaches graduate courses in research methods and gerontology. For the past several years, her research has focused on the challenges and opportunities faced by individuals who are balancing employment with providing informal care to children and/or elderly family members or friends and the ways in which the public and private sectors can assist these caregivers. She has received several grants and written numerous articles, book chapters, and two previous books on these topics (i.e., Balancing Work and Caregiving for Children, Adults, and Elders, Sage, 1993; Work and Caring for the Elderly: International Perspectives, edited with Viola Lechner, Taylor & Francis, 1999).  
Leslie B. Hammer is professor of psychology in the Department of Psychology at Portland State University, the director of the Occupational Health Psychology program, and the director of the Center for Work-Family Stress, Safety, and Health, both funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Dr. Hammer's research has focused on the difficulties in coordinating the demands of work and family that stem from factors within individuals and their close relationships, as well as factors in the work organization. Her research has identified ways in which organizations can help reduce work-family stress and improve positive spillover by facilitating both formal and informal workplace supports, and her studies on work and family crossover effects have demonstrated the importance of considering the dyad as the unit of analysis in work and family research. Dr. Hammer serves on the founding editorial board of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network’s On-Line Work and Family Encyclopedia, and she is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management and the Psychologist-Manager Journal. She has published numerous articles on work and family in such outlets as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Family Issues, Human Resource Planning, and Journal of Marriage and the Family, among others.