Gender Differences in Transfers among Married Couples in the “Sandwich Generation”

Emily Wiemers, University of Massachusetts at Boston
Esther M. Friedman, RAND Corporation

This project examines gender differences in transfers to parents and children among couples in the so-called sandwich generation—couples who give money or time to multiple generations. Most work that has been done on the sandwich generation describes the prevalence and correlates of giving time or money to multiple generations for women in late middle age. This proposal uses new data from the 2013 Roster and Transfer Module from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to describe gender differences in the types and amounts of transfers within married and cohabiting couples. The paper draws on the literature on gender division of household work to analyze whether the gender difference in time spent caring for children and parents within couples can be explained by differences in relative earnings and relative differences in educational attainment.