A comparative study of the middle class and working class sandwich generations, the stress they encounter and their coping strategies in contemporary Hong Kong society

Present-day families encounter great structural changes, and are influenced by social change and the fertility rate. These changes create different kinds of stress. Sandwich generation in this study means the spouse of the middle generation in a three-generation family. The age of this generation is between 30 to 64, and they have at least one child. They have parents alive in at least one side of the spouse. In this study, there are three main streams: (1) to study the internal dynamics of families; (2) the social class differences; and (3) the influence of the family life cycle. This is a qualitative study, making use of in-depth interviews. The sampling methods are personal contact and the snowball methods. Two criteria of selected samples are family life cycle and social class. Totally 123 persons of 38 families, and 117 individuals are interviewed. The totally number of these two groups is 240 persons. There are two sources of stress. One is to cope with survival, and the other is a changed situation. Under the influence of the "spouse & parent-child mixed dyad relationship", how the sandwich generations set up the priority, the gender differences in terms of coping strategies and whether to live together with the first generation have been studied. In social class differences, different classes have different advantages in family resources, and they affect the coping strategies. There are four stages in the family life cycle, according to the development of the third generation. They are the infant stage, studying stage, working stage, and marriage stage respectively. At the first stage of the family life cycle, the sandwich generation has the greatest freedom to choose their living location. At the second stage, the sandwich generations tend to live with their parents. At the third stage, the sandwich generations are eager to search for a stable economic environment. This high financial burden may become lighter if the third generation provide them with financial support. At the fourth stage, the third generation is preparing marriage, and the health condition of the first generation becomes weak, the sandwich generation receives more burden financially and in caregiving. At this stage, the sandwich generations receive the greatest stress. Many of the sandwich generations at this stage take the first generation to the institutes for the elderly. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).