Jul 01, 2025

Caught in the middle: The care squeeze is crippling Australia’s sandwich generation

Women of three female family generations side portrait

They’re changing nappies at one end of the age spectrum and attending specialist appointments at the other. They’re booking childcare and organising aged care assessments—sometimes on the same day. And they’re doing it all while trying to hold down a job.

Welcome to The Care Squeeze—a growing crisis that’s quietly reshaping Australian family life.

The reality is now getting national attention thanks to the ABC’s recent series, The Care Squeeze, which shines a spotlight on the hidden cost of unpaid care and the people living it every day.

The hidden workforce holding it all together

According to the ABC analysis, around 1.5 million Australians are now part of what’s known as the sandwich generation — those caring for both their children and ageing parents at the same time. The emotional, financial and logistical toll is immense, and as the population ages, it’s only getting worse.

While Australia’s aged care and childcare systems struggle under staffing shortages, escalating costs and regulatory reform, it’s these middle-aged carers—most of them women—who are filling the gaps. Often unpaid, usually exhausted, and largely unsupported.

Episodes of The Care Squeeze revealed real-life stories: families using annual leave to transport parents to medical appointments, people reducing work hours or declining promotions to manage care, and caregivers dipping into savings just to afford temporary respite. This invisible workforce is the glue in a system that’s quietly cracking.

A crisis with gendered consequences

The care squeeze is not gender-neutral. Women are overwhelmingly the ones who take on these dual responsibilities, at significant personal and professional cost.

As The Care Squeeze highlighted, carers in this group are more likely to experience burnout, reduced income, and long-term career disruption. And it’s not just anecdotal: Treasury modelling shows that supporting unpaid carers to remain in the workforce could add tens of billions to the economy — yet policies remain fragmented.

The case for systemic support

This isn’t just a personal juggling act — it’s a structural failure. Australia’s care systems weren’t designed for multi-generational dependency under one roof. Childcare is expensive and hard to access. Home care is waitlisted. Residential care is often viewed as a last resort rather than an integral part of a continuum of support.

We need to stop treating carers as collateral damage in an overstretched system. Paid carer leave, more accessible respite, affordable childcare, and flexible workplace policies are no longer “nice to have” — they’re essential infrastructure.

We must rethink what care means

At its core, the care squeeze is a story about time, identity, and invisible labour. But it’s also a wake-up call: the way we think about ageing, parenting, and working must evolve.

A society that values care must also support its carers — not just with praise, but with policy. Until that happens, 1.5 million Australians will keep doing the impossible — juggling care for the people who raised them, and the little people they’re raising in turn.

Because love may be infinite, but time and energy are not.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. It must be so difficult to juggle the caring role for parents whilst raising their own children. So many stressors in one multi generational household.
    Also please note the spouses of older Australians providing care . It’s somewhat different from the retirement I’d pictured. Living with dementia is hard for everyone, on each side of the fence. As an older person providing care, I note the lack of affordable respite in the home, a weekend,my one and only in in 2 plus years, cost our Level 4 package $2300. With SaH and fee for both management and care rising, it will become rare to cover the cost of in home respite. I’m already using savings and super to fill the gap. I just hope I will be able to afford care at home for both of us, as neither choose residential care as our long-term destination.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

First centenarian of the new year

Richard Thomas became the first Australian centenarian of 2023 when he celebrated his 100th birthday on January 1. Read More

When Does Beauty Equal Anti-Ageing?

I have more than a few bees in my bonnet, and I share one of them with Isabella Rossellini. This is the one where beauty is redefined as youth, or looking young. In an interview that she did for The Guardian, in 2016 at the age of 65, she gave her opinion about that. As... Read More

Grandson Brings Grandfather To Tears After Restoring his 1954 Pickup Truck

A 70-year-old farmer was left speechless after his grandson secretly restored his pickup truck that had been broken and undrivable for 40 years. Read More
Advertisement