The Sandwich Generation: Canadians Stretched Between Aging Parents and Children

Features | The Sandwich Generation

Caught between caring simultaneously for aging parents and children or grandchildren, a growing group of Canadians is making up the so-called Sandwich Generation that’s straddling two generations in need. And the double-layered financial, physical and emotional pressures are spreading them too thin. 

Words by Alex Cyr

When Jane Allin retired in 2014 after a 30-year career in education—most recently as a high school principal in Toronto—she had grand plans for her golden years. She and her husband, Stephen, a retired entrepreneur who once helmed the largest garden furniture manufacturing company in North America, had mapped it all out: they would travel, get in shape and settle into a slower pace of life. And for a while, they did. The couple moved from midtown Toronto to Mill Village, a quiet coastal town in Nova Scotia. They bought a two-storey home with a wide porch near the ocean where Stephen spent peaceful days, and she enjoyed sewing and kayaking.  

But it was a short-lived reprieve for Allin. Now 70 years old, she spends her days juggling medical appointments, banking portals, transportation logistics and emotional check-ins across three generations of her family: she assists her aging mother, helps with her young grandchildren and is the primary caregiver for Stephen, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years ago. And she does it all while straddling two provinces. 

Allin is part of Canada’s Sandwich Generation: adults caught between caring for aging parents and spouses and supporting their children and grandchildren. Once a statistical footnote, this group now represents a growing segment of the population comprising over 1.8 million Canadians, or roughly four per cent of the population, according to Statistics Canada. The proportion of seniors in Canada has climbed to 18.9 per cent in 2023 from 12.6 per cent in 2000, and projections suggest nearly 30 per cent could be seniors by 2068.

For many, caregiving is no longer something that might happen someday. It is already here, and not everyone is ready.

“It’s so challenging,” Allin says. “Having to deal with every aspect of somebody else’s care is also letting yourself go in the process. You lose yourself because it’s not about you anymore in any way.”

The Double-Decker Sandwich

“Fifty years ago, no one at 40 was having children,” says Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a public health expert with academic appointments at the City University of New York and Harvard University. “Now, people are starting families later, and their parents are living longer.” That means caregivers today may be supporting aging grandparents, ailing parents, their own children and even grandchildren—that’s a quadruple-layer caregiving load.

Piltch-Loeb knows this from personal experience. Her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s the same year she had her first child. In her late 20s and navigating early motherhood, she suddenly found herself carrying the additional load of scheduling medical appointments for her father. Her recently published book, The Millennial Caregiver, offers a handbook for others in a similar position.

“Caregiving is an extremely isolating experience,” she says, adding that the weight of it makes it hard to engage in lighthearted interactions. Piltch-Loeb’s saving grace was a supportive husband and keeping a regular dinner with girlfriends—a small but crucial act of normalcy.

The Health Load

For single parents or those with strained family dynamics, the situation can be even more precarious. If siblings live far away or are unwilling to help, the burden tends to fall disproportionately on one person who is expected to shoulder it all. And the health ramifications can be dire. 

A Canadian longitudinal study examining mental health effects in caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic found that rates of anxiety and depression among caregivers were significantly higher than in the general population. And things were looking grim even before then. In a 2016 report from Health Quality Ontario titled “The Reality of Caring,” caregiver distress was used as a model for examining the effects of chronic stress. It concluded that negative effects on caregivers ranged from back problems, migraines and stomach ulcers to hormonal changes, anxiety, depression and even early death. In addition, many caregivers experience anticipatory grief, the emotional toll of watching a loved one decline over time, knowing what’s coming. 

“It’s typically much more intense for caregivers than non-caregivers because of the close bond they form with the people they are caring for,” said Barbara Karnes, a hospice nurse and author of The Final Act of Living, to Brain&Life, the magazine of the American Academy of Neurology, in 2023.

As Stephen’s condition worsens, Allin is watching her time and energy vanish. She struggles to find time to sew and kayak; she can’t focus on helping her daughter, a school principal, navigate her career, and she wishes she could be more present as a grandmother. Plus, she constantly feels like she is falling short in caring for her own mom.

“I feel very torn in how I help my mother,” she says. “And I resent any need she has of me, even if it’s just to chat. Because I have no chat left in me.”

The Financial Toll

The cost of caregiving isn’t just emotional. A 2019 study found that Canadian caregivers spend an average of $5,800 out-of-pocket annually. These costs include health services, equipment, transportation, home maintenance, and even modifications like wheelchair ramps and walk-in tubs.

Nearly one in four caregivers say their responsibilities have affected their careers; more than one-fifth have had to reduce their working hours or take lower-paying roles. According to Statistics Canada, 86 per cent of sandwich caregivers report at least one negative impact on their well-being.

And that’s in normal times—the current affordability crisis is making matters worse. In spring 2024, 45 per cent of Canadians reported that rising prices were greatly affecting their ability to meet day-to-day expenses. The Consumer Price Index rose by 17.1 per cent from January 2021 to August 2024, equalling the cumulative increase over the prior 10 years. Meanwhile, child care has outpaced inflation in recent years. Even with the federal government investing billions to cut child care costs, the elevated price of food and clothing means many Canadians are waiting or refraining from having children altogether. 

It all makes for a recipe for financial stress. Dave Giles, a financial planner and advisor at Sun Life, says families who own real estate are clearly in a desirable position for caregiving. He explains that if they have a property that’s worth anywhere between $500,000 and $2 million, they can use that to fund long-term care, living expenses, and even food and clothing. Without that asset, however, it often falls on adult children to financially support their parents for the rest of their lives.

The Long-Term Care Dilemma

For many caregivers, the obvious solution to the added stress would be to place aging parents or spouses in long-term care, but that option remains prohibitively expensive for many. Private facilities can cost from $2,000 to upwards of $6,000 a month, and government-subsidized spots are scarce. 

Others eschew assisted living facilities because they carry a stigma. Allin has no plans to put either her husband or mother in one, especially since a past hospitalization experience left deep scars. She said that following a recent stroke, Stephen was admitted to the hospital, where he was left mostly alone for 12 hours at a time. When he asked for help to go to the bathroom, he waited a long time and raised his voice at a caretaker for not being more attentive. Then came a written warning about his “behaviour.” “After five days, he begged me to take him home,” Allin says.

Situations like these are borne of a severely strained long-term care and health care system. In 2024, the C.D. Howe Institute warned that Canada isn’t prepared to handle the surge in care needs for seniors, citing shortages in long-term care beds and critical gaps in quality of care. A report from October 2024 revealed that some Canadians were waiting up to 18 months to see a geriatrician. Many caregivers spend months navigating bureaucracy only to end up with waitlists or facilities far from home. 

The Real Estate Lifeline

Sound real estate decisions have so far allowed Allin to avoid long-term care altogether. Her home in Nova Scotia has a main-level bedroom and wide doors that accommodate a wheelchair. She and Stephen also still own their home in Toronto: a three-storey house in which her son and his family currently live. But in two years’ time, she plans to sell it to help offset caregiving costs—a move she dreads.

“I can’t even tell my husband,” she says. “Selling that house is like wrenching me away from one more piece of the past.”

The motivation to avoid such scenarios is making multi-generational living more common. Amy Coupal, CEO of the Ontario Caregiver Organization, notes that when caregivers live with the people they care for, the quality of support and time spent together improves dramatically. But she says the arrangement isn’t always prescriptive. Some caregivers are long-distance, while others live in the same household but still struggle to meet medical, emotional and logistical demands.

Coupal argues that multi-generational setups, when done with proper planning, can ease both financial and emotional burdens. Shared child care, eldercare and even grocery shopping save time and money, but you need ground rules, including privacy expectations, division of labour and even time away.

“When a caregiver lives with the person they care for, they are probably spending more time caregiving [than if they lived elsewhere],” she says. 

The Need For A National Conversation

As our population ages, more Canadians are expected to become members of the Sandwich Generation in the upcoming decades. And it’s a fact that should be prompting a larger, more encompassing conversation. 

According to an Ontario Caregiver Organization survey, employers should be offering flexible hours, caregiver leave and caregiver days akin to sick days. But that kind of support remains out of reach—and it could soon become a major workplace issue, Coupal says.

Experts agree we are in need of a cultural shift toward collective preparation and more comprehensive government policies. Several Scandinavian countries, for example, have experimented with intergenerational communal housing, pairing younger people with seniors to share resources and build community.

Allin wonders if such a system could facilitate life for people in her situation in Canada. Federalizing health care would help, too, she says. Because she retains an Ontario doctor, she cannot access mental health services tied to her Ontario residency in Nova Scotia; meanwhile,  Stephen only recently found a general practitioner in the Maritimes. “If health care was federal,” she says, “maybe these things would have been picked up earlier.”

But the road ahead feels steep. For now, Allin finds strength in small, gratifying rituals: morning coffee on the porch, watching birds, talking to her grandchildren on the phone. “There are moments that remind me why I do this,” she says. “That’s what keeps me going.”

Sidebar

Prepping for a Caregiving Future

Although it might not be a pleasant thought for most, making sure you’re prepared for a future that could include both ailing parents and kids in need of support is a wise move. And one that many Canadians are not ready for. 

The cost of child care is at an all-time high. Statistics Canada estimated that the cost of supporting a child’s first 17 years of life averages $293,000, or $17,235 per year, for a two-parent, middle-income family with two kids. That estimate varies, of course, based on family size and income and has skyrocketed due to the rise in housing, food, clothing and transportation costs. Parents can expect to pay closer to $400,000 when children stay home for their early adult years (or until 22), which is an increasingly common occurrence.

According to a 2024 survey by Simplii Financial, there’s a striking gap between expectation and preparedness. While one-third of Canadians are already caring for aging parents, more than half expect to take on the role within five years—yet less than four in ten have had serious financial discussions with their parents.

And while owning a big home is a good start, it’s not the only way to prepare, says Sun Life’s Giles. He tells his clients to take additional steps. Some are investing in accumulation annuities—insurance GICs that bypass probate and go directly to beneficiaries. Others are squirrelling away money in TFSAs that can be tapped for tax-free emergency relief. He also advises creating financial and medical powers of attorney before a crisis hits.

Above all else, have a plan in place. “I like to test it at $10,000 per month,” says Giles, in an example of how much living and caretaking tends to cost in the GTA, where he does much of his work. “How long can your plan last with that amount of expenditures?” 

Coupal of the Ontario Caregiver Organization seconds this. “If you anticipate becoming a caregiver, the most important thing to do is to open the conversation with the person that you expect to care for, whether that’s around housing, finances, medical care or driving.”