Family pressure traps generation

By REBECCA WALSH

Many New Zealanders in their 50s and 60s face a delayed retirement as they struggle to meet the needs of ageing parents and adult children, a Waikato University study has found.

Members of the "sandwich generation" are often forced to continue working to help children through tertiary study while trying to find the time to care for elderly parents, researchers say.

Higher divorce rates mean women, who have taken time out of the workforce to have children, are particularly badly affected.

The research involved interviews with 80 men and women from the Hamilton area and aged between 50 and 69.

It was carried out by Dr Dharma Dharmalingam, of the university's sociology and social policy department, and Professor Peggy Koopman-Boyden, a former Waikato dean.

The "sandwich generation" group were questioned about their ideal retirement and how family responsibilities influenced their decision to continue working or retire.

Dr Dharmalingam said preliminary results indicated that the group had suffered from policies which had imposed higher personal costs on their children's tertiary education, reduced health benefits for their aged parents and increased the age of eligibility for superannuation to 65.

The higher incidence of divorce meant assets were split, which affected retirement plans.

Women were often worse off, especially if they had been full-time parents. Those who returned to work often did so with low qualifications and limited earning potential.

"Women went into these partnerships and assumed it would be lasting ... Then they have this double whammy of not being able to accumulate enough resources and not having a partner to support them."

Dr Dharmalingam said future superannuation policies needed to consider the contributions women made or they would be considerably worse off than men. "The interdependence of work and family life is critical when it comes to people's decisions about when to retire and how to retire."

With an increasingly elderly population, many people did not want to rely on the Government for their health care and continued working to pay for private health insurance, Dr Dharmalingam said.

Couples often fared little better, as policies based on parental income meant many ended up paying for their children's education, health and accommodation.

Dr Dharmalingam said the reality for many in the "sandwich generation" was continued work and a financially difficult retirement.

"We expect to find increasing pressure on this generation to continue to work as long as they can and as much as they can."

Dr Judith Davey, director of the Institute for Research on Ageing, based at Victoria University, welcomed research into the 50-to-69-year age group.

"This is an age group that needs a lot more attention," she said. "If we are going to try and improve the situation for older people in the future, and there is a bulge of them coming through, then it's no good starting to think about them when they are 80. You need to start thinking about them when they are 40 and 50."

Dr Davey said research had shown that money tended to be passed down generations rather than up, so middle-aged people were more likely to be under pressure to find the time to care for ageing parents instead of helping them financially.

Retirement Commissioner Colin Blair said research had shown that more people over 60 to 65 were remaining in work, which made sense given that the age of eligibility for superannuation had increased.

Mr Blair said that unfortunately, people did have to make "tough decisions" about how they used their money.