Centre for Policy on Ageing



Caught in the middle? — occupancy in multiple roles and help to parents in a national probability sample of Canadian adults
Author(s)	Carolyn J Rosenthal, Anne Martin-Matthews, Sarah H Matthews
Journal title	The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological sciences and social sciences, vol 51B, no 6, November 1996
Pages	pp S274-S283
Keywords	Middle aged ; Social roles ; Children [offspring] ; Parents ; Employees ; Cross sectional surveys ; Canada.
Annotation	Using data on middle aged women and men from the General Social Survey of Canada, this article considers the question of how typical is the experience of 'being caught in the middle' between being an adult child of elderly parents, and other roles. Three roles are examined: adult child, employed worker, and parent (also, being a parent of a co-resident child). Occupancy of multiple roles is examined. An investigation of the extent to which adults in various role combinations actually assist older parents indicates that most do not provide frequent help. Notably, the highest proportion of daughters who assist elderly parents are those in their fifties, whose children have left home. 'Being caught in the middle' is far from a typical experience in this Canadian cross-sectional analysis.
Accession Number	CPA-971125232 A
Classmark	SE: TM5: SS: SR: WK: 3KB: 7S
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.