Introduction

In recent decades there has been much discussion in social sciences about the risk society and different social risks. Differentiation is made between old and new risks (1). The ageing of the population is considered to be one important new source of risk (2). That is because the proportion of older people in the population has started to gradually exceed the proportion of younger people and among the elderly there has been growth of the proportion of the oldest (75-85) (3). It has been forecasted that in the developed regions of the world, including in Europe, one-third of the population will be 60-years-old and above by the year 2050 (3). These changes influence all aspects of human life – family composition, living conditions as well as economic activity, employment and social insurance (4). The ageing of the population is an important source of risk also because many elderly could need the help of others in certain period of life. Supporting those in need has been considered to be firstly the task of the family (5), which therefore raises the question of how will the family cope with multiple roles in the new situation. Families whose members live alone (one-member families) whose children or other members live further away are in a particularly difficult situation (6).

Researchers have studied for years the influence of different roles for family members, especially for the welfare of women, for their physical and mental health (7, 8, 9). A big part of these studies focuses on the questions of combining professional work and family life. Lot of discussions have centred around the difficulties of keeping these two areas in balance, “pressure of roles” or “conflict of roles”, where the woman has to merge the roles of a wife, a parent and an employee (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15).

In the earlier studies focused on the women’s roles, attention has been paid firstly on young women, their roles as wife, mother of a young child and employee (16). At the same time a lot of studies have been carried out on paid professional work and unpaid domestic work – the latter is called wittily women’s “second shift” (7). There are fewer studies which have focused on the burden of roles of working middle-aged and elderly women. Why has this topic been of growing interest for the researchers?

A situation has emerged where many women who have invested much time and energy in education and career, get married and have children in relatively late age – 30-40-years-old or even older (17, 18). But this can pose a twofold load of demands for the middle-aged generation – on one hand raising children and supporting grand-children and on the other hand supporting parents, often also grandparents. This trend has been called the “sandwich” generation (SG). The term “sandwich” was given to this phenomenon by Dorothy Miller (19). We are talking mostly about 45-59-years-old women, who have been trapped by a multitude of roles, when they have duties as employees, parents and also as helpers and caregivers for elderly and family members (18, 20). The proportion of these people is rather large in the society. Studies have shown that in America 35% of women aged 55-63 have at least one under-aged child and at least one living parent. In UK this percent was 19 (21). It has been found that in most cases the helpers of older people were daughters or daughter-in-laws, and most people being helped were women (22).

Although the multitude of roles is mentioned mostly in connection with women, there are studies which show that also men fulfil many roles in their work and family spheres (23, 24)

Since the number of children in families is decreasing, also the number of relatives per older person decreases in the near future. The small number of sisters-brothers in a family creates in the nuclear families a situation where the entire burden of helping falls on one child, in most cases on the daughter. It has been said that a grown-up woman spends 17 years of her life taking care of children and 18 years helping her parents (25). Now even a question has been asked: how can we adjust and communicate in a situation where three or soon even four or five different generations live simultaneously (26).

Researchers have found that every second person in SG has a strong condition of agitation and depression. It is emphasised that in these families intergenerational conflicts and differences between spouses are widespread (12, 27).

Studies have emphasised not only pressures stemming from assisting, but also negative aspects of three generations living together (25, 28). Telephone communication between the young and older people is widespread, which enables the elderly to retain contact with their children living further away. At the same time the researchers emphasise that the decreasing number of adult children and their growing migration poses the question of assisting the elderly (29). It has been studied which factors influence the living together of elderly and adult children. The researchers found that poorer relatives live more often with their parents than richer ones. The living together of multiple generations is a source of support for the children as elderly can use some domestic services (e.g. kitchen equipment, telephone service) more cheaply than when children use them independently (30). The study of Hillcoat-Nalletamby, Dharmalingan & Baxendine (31) shows that the married status of elderly and children, religious standpoints and ethnicity, are important factors that influence the solidarity of a parent-child relationship. Relationships and attitudes towards living together are based on duties and beliefs that parents need to be re-paid for the help they have given in the past (28).

There are two views on the influence of the multitude of roles. On one hand it has been said that the multitude of roles decreases the time of the caregiver and leads therefore to psychological stress (32).

But there are also researchers who emphasise the positive effect of the multitude of roles for the caregiver. According to this perspective the multitude of roles increases and enriches person’s effectiveness and self-esteem, because one feels directly or indirectly the rise of status and in this way the multitude of roles can act as a buffer for the stress that accompanies the role of care-giving (16, 22, 23). Whether the multitude of roles increases or decreases the level of stress is according to authors purely a question of the specific situation. According to Penning (22) the answer depends on whether one receives some benefits for caretaking, whether this role has been chosen voluntarily, etc.

Based on the previous we posed a question how does the Estonian family cope with the multitude of roles. This is a situation where women go to work and have responsibilities towards multiple generations. And they could be characterised by the phrase – “sandwich” generation (SG) – which means a situation where women would be like a sandwich backed between twofold duties – taking care of younger generation as well as assisting the older one. According to demographic prognosis the proportion of over 65-years-old can rise in Estonia by the year 2050 from the current 17% two times higher (3). This demands continuous direction of attention towards social work with the elderly ensuring them necessary social and health care services (33).

Since Estonian population ages and families become smaller and unstable, solidarity between generations becomes a weak point. Multi-generation families were widespread in Estonia in the past, especially in the country-side, where grand-parents, parents, children and grand-children lived under the same roof. At the moment this form has been in big part replaced by nuclear families, where parents and children live together, but the oldest generation lives often separately from the younger ones (34). In the year of the study the indicators of living together were on the basis of the population survey as follows: 65% of people lived with spouse; 36% with under-aged child; 22% with adult child and 19% with their or their spouse’s parent.

It has been also said that individual goals and values have become more important, which poses the question, whether increased individualism can be a threat for inter-generational support (35). That this threat is also apparent in Estonia is shown by the fact that Estonian women consider self-fulfilment to be a very important value (36). Even in a hypothetical situation of material well-being, when there is no need to work, women are not willing to stay at home. One reason is the high level of education of Estonian women, which has lead to the need to find self-fulfilment and professional self-realisation (37).

The aforementioned developments pose next to professional help given to families also the question of the nature of parent-child relationships and to what extent different generations help or want to help each other.

Data used and choice of variables

General characterisation of the sample

Results

Satisfaction assessments of SG families

Satisfaction with one’s life depends in big part on whether one lives with parents or not. Unfortunately it is impossible to distinguish on the basis of our data with whom the respondent is living - either his own or spouse’s parents. We compare below the satisfaction assessments of men and women in two groups: 1) if they live together with their or their spouse’s parents and 2) if they do not live together (see table 1).

Figure 1

Table 1. Average satisfaction assessments of women and men with under-aged children about different areas of life depending on whether they live together with their or spouse’s parents, 2003, averages, F, p

In table 1 it is apparent that in the women’s group for many variables under study the satisfaction assessments are higher when women do not live with parents. Living with parents means that two generations who have different values and understandings about life have to live together. Also the living space decreases. The data shows that when living with parents there are on average 4.63 persons in the family unit, when not living with parents, then 3.61 (p=.000).

Living with parents decreases satisfaction with living conditions and economic situation. Also women’s satisfaction with family life is higher when they do not live with parents.

It is also important to note that women’s satisfaction with relations with under-aged children, both 7-13 and 14-17-years-old, is better when the older generation lives separately. Living together with the older generation has influenced negatively also women’s health condition and elevated their level of stress.

Living together with parents brings with it women’s lower satisfaction with free time spending possibilities both at home and outside it.

At the same time table 1 shows that when multiple generations are living together then men’s attitude and level of satisfaction is totally different from that of women. Men’s satisfaction assessments with many areas are high also when they live with parents, or the average values of assessments are quite close to each other whether they live with parents or not. For most variables the probability of correlation was unimportant. Could it be one of the reasons for women’s dissatisfaction that men do not notice that women have a lot of reasons for discontentment when living together with older generation? At the same time there are two areas where living together with parents affects also men’s satisfaction assessments. These were satisfaction with family life and with relations with children aged 7-13.

Women’s more critical attitude can be caused also by the fact that they have difficulties getting help and understanding from other family members in every-day life (table 2). Women’s level of stress has been considerably elevated by husband’s uneconomic behaviour; differences with husband in various questions, e.g. raising and schooling children; differences due to differing views and understandings and due to house-work. The reasons are also bad family relations; poor living conditions; alcohol abuse by a family member; combining work and family life. In terms of men the stress variable refers to problems in such areas as raising and schooling children; family relations; living conditions and especially house-work and domestic tasks. For the rest of the variables there are no correlations or they are unimportant. As we can see the aspects mentioned in the women’s group influence in many cases more strongly their psychological subjective welfare than was apparent for men.

Figure 2

Table 2. Correlation of differences and personal acute problems apparent in a family with the level of stress (not in stress – maximum stress), R. p.

It is more difficult to help parents when they need help, but live further away. In order to describe the situation we compared the satisfaction assessments of women with under-aged children, in addition to data in table 2 (which we repeat here in order to get a better overview), in two more groups. When they do not live with parents, but, 1) both parents are alive and live together, 2) but parents are alive, but live separately (table 3).

Figure 3

Table 3. Satisfaction assessments of women with under-aged children with different areas of life depending on with whom their parents live, 2003, averages, F, p

When comparing the averages of these groups it becomes apparent that the satisfaction assessments of women with under-aged children are higher when both parents live, when they live together, but separately from children. This applies to many satisfaction assessments – related to family life, economic condition, health and life in general. Women’s level of stress is the lowest in this case.

Mutual help between generations

We saw before that women’s level of stress was influenced to a large extent whether they live with parents or not. Previous studies have indicated that the middle-aged generation is disturbed if they have to help their parents and even if parents help them (40). Next we try to find out on the basis of our data how burdening it is for the middle-aged to assist their or their spouse’s parents.

We measured the informal support by using the following dimensions:

1) material help – monetary help in the form of a small loan, and

2) non-material help – in field and gardening tasks, renovations, transport, etc. This includes also moral, emotional support, opportunity to get worries off one’s chest.

Figure 4

Table 4. Help women and men with under-aged children offer to their or their spouse’s parents, %, N=567 (including men=200, women=367)

Table 4 shows that women have helped the elderly somewhat more than men. Every third woman has given a loan to parents and more than every second has helped with every-day and also practical tasks. The proportion of men is higher only in practical tasks (has done renovations or built or if necessary helped them with transport) – almost every fourth has helped their or their wife’s parent often. Bigger difference is apparent in case of emotional help. Among the surveyed middle-aged women 27% have offered their parents emotional support often and 51% sometimes; the figures for men are 6% and 48%.

Help elderly offer to the middle-aged

Figure 5

Table 5. Receiving help from parents by women/ men with under-aged children, %,N=567, including men=200 and women=367

When asking women about the help they have received from parents (table 5), it becomes apparent that quite a lot of people have answered have not needed such kind of help. It is also visible that when parents have helped the middle-aged, then this has happened sometimes. Help has been received often mostly by women, and this mostly in the form of emotional support and babysitting.

Studies have shown that there is tension involved in giving and especially in excepting help. This has been found especially in case of material help, which has been called a problematic area by researches. The only sphere that did not inflict stress was emotional help (40). We looked whether also according to our data the respondents felt tensions when parents helped them and they excepted help, and whether there were differences in men’s and women’s group. For that we used correlation analysis.

Men are not disturbed by receiving help in any form from their parents and also by having to help a parent. The influence of these aspects for stress variables did not exist and also the importance of the correlation probability did not fall within the required limits. The only strong correlation with stress variable existed when men had to often hear the personal worries of the elderly (0.18**).

For women the situation was somewhat different – giving loan correlates most strongly with the stress variable (0.16***) and so does helping parents often in every-day domestic tasks (0.25***). And also when material help has been received from parents (0.18***) or help in every-day domestic tasks (0.15**). The level of stress is elevated apparently firstly by being in a forced situation, where people are unable to cope on their own and need help, and not by that fact that parents have helped them. The rest of help types did not affect women’s level of stress. Also these data indicate differences in the attitudes of men/ women.

Discussion

In recent decades the topic of sandwich generation has become a very popular field of study among researchers (12, 18, 22, 27, 40, 41). The term describes a person, who has been pressed simultaneously between two demands – to support both his parents and under-aged children dependent on him. Dorothy Miller (19), who came up with this term, referred mostly to the generation of middle-age women. According to E. Brody (32) since the average duration of life has increased together with the need to help parents, middle-aged women have to spend inevitably a lot of time as „women in the middle”.

In a sense this is not a new phenomenon. Children have historically always helped their elderly parents, often in children’s homes. But what is different in the current situation when compared to the past?

Firstly, people live longer. But the advances in medicine and pharmacy have prolonged not only the duration of life, but also time during which a person might need help. In Estonia women’s life span has risen between 1995-2006 from 74 to 78 and men’s from 61 to 67 (42). Although in all European countries men’s expected life span is shorter than women’s, the life span difference of men and women in Estonia is one of the biggest, reaching 11 years (43). This fact means that the statement that mostly women take the role of a helper might be especially true for Estonia (16, 22, 44).

Secondly, young families decide to postpone having children. Average age when mother gives birth in Estonia has risen 1995-2006 from 25 to 28 (42). But this way these women find themselves someday in a situation where they have to help simultaneously their under-aged children and also parents. Pierret (18) emphasises that in addition these parents have less children, and therefore less relatives who would share the burden of helping mother-farther. Grown-up children live mostly separately from parents, which further complicates helping.

Also supporting children lasts nowadays longer than before, often even until mid-20s, i.e. until the time young people graduate from school and establish their own family (18). In addition many women work outside home, which makes helping and communicating with elderly especially difficult. In 2007 the employment rate for women aged 15-64 was 66% in Estonia (in EU on average 58%) (42).

Taking into account late motherhood, women’s growing employment and increasing number of elderly in the population, we were interested whether also in Estonia is the generation of middle-aged women subjugated by two-fold demands – on one hand raising children and on the other hand helping parents. And which are these women’s satisfaction assessments with different areas of life depending on whether they live with parents or not. The research data is based on the materials of a nation-wide survey “Eesti 2003” conducted by the family sociologists of the Institute of International and Social Studies of Tallinn University, during which 1558 respondents aged 18-69 were surveyed.

How many people does the sandwich generation include, depends on how one defines the term. Our first condition was that the respondents have at least one under-aged, below 18-years-old, child. 36% of the population sample corresponded to this criteria. Further, in order to observe relations between different generations – that at least one parent is alive. This proportion was quite high in our sample – 92% had living parents.

The data indicated that among the respondents that corresponded with the set criteria three respondents out of four were 30-50-years-old. 40% had one child, another 40% had two children and 20% had three or more children. Most of them were employed.

Studies which analyse the influence of mutual help of different generations for family relations and quality of family life, vary in their conclusions about the topic. For example researches Loomis and Booth (45) have claimed that the mutual helping of multiple generations has little or no influence for such variables as psychological welfare, satisfaction with free time, economic resources and the quality of marriage. The authors explain their conclusion by the fact that different generations know each other well, they know each other’s needs and expectations, and weaknesses and strengths. Therefore there are no major problems when there are some extra tasks. They refer also to the choice effect, that the one who is most capable, takes upon himself the responsibility for helping. And also to this that a stronger family finds it easier to help. Most researchers, however, find that helping parents creates for the care-givers emotional tensions, decreases free time, lowers satisfaction with family life and raises dissatisfaction with marital relations, and complicates also economic conditions (12, 27, 32). Furthermore – they emphasise not only the influence of helping parents, but even the negative aspects of three generations living together (25).

According to our data women are not contented with the situation when three generations have to live together. The problems occurred for the most different reasons. Starting from the fact that generations with different life values and understandings have to live together. Living together decreases the living space. But on smaller premises, especially when living in the same flat, people disturb each other more and therefore conflicts are easier to emerge.

Also economic means become scarcer when they have to be divided between more family members and all these matters decrease satisfaction with living conditions and economic situation. The situation can also be reverse – different generations move together for economic reasons in order to save expenses for one living space, which has become more widespread during the last year under the conditions of economic oppression. Developing discontentment with economic situation can also cause that although children wish to live separately from parents, there is not enough money to buy separate apartment for younger family or parents. All this influences the family life of the younger generation as satisfaction with family life is higher for women when they do not live with parents. We can assume that all these factors as also our data confirm has influenced negatively women’s health and elevated their level of stress. In men’s group living together with parents influences much less their satisfaction with different areas of life, exception is satisfaction with family life.

Special attention has to be paid in these families to the situation of children as relations with children were also better when the older generation lived separately. It is especially important to take into account this fact, because like researchers have indicated – when parents are in stress, when there is controversy between spouses and conflicts with grand-parents, then also children are in stress (12, 20). And our data shows that living together with older generation influences considerably satisfaction with relations with children, and this especially for women.

We can bring out a certain gradation in the welfare of women with children, where according to the situation satisfaction assessments become gradually more positive.

1. Satisfaction assessments are the lowest when living with parents.

2. The averages of assessments are somewhat higher when not living with parents.

3. Although indicators are better than for previous groups, the negative aspect is that even when parents live separately from children, they live alone.

4. Satisfaction assessments are highest when both parents are alive, live together, but separately from children. The positive attitude of younger generation is based on the feeling of security that parents are alive and they cope because they live together and support each other through problems, not to mention that there is someone to communicate and talk to. In that case parents turn less to children for help. In this way the middle generation does not have to worry about parents, at the same time they can always help and visit them if there is need or wish to do that. Also less time is spent on visiting parents when they live in one place than when they live in different places.

According to women’s satisfaction assessments it is important for the welfare of the middle-aged generation that they know that parents cope with their lives. In this case the family can concentrate on fulfilling its main function – raising children. But when the parent has remained alone, then he often comes to live with the child’s family. Then again as we saw the living together of multiple generations brings with itself serious tensions in the family, especially for women. At the same time the data indicates that since the parents of women aged 30-50 are still relatively young and since most of them are not yet in direct need for help, it would be right for the welfare of younger generations, that parents live separately, away from children. This brings us to another problem – when living separately from children their coping can be impaired and satisfaction with life decrease. Not to mention the possibility that the feeling of loneliness or abandonment develops (6).

Women are disturbed when they have an extra burden in the form of supporting their or their spouse’s parent. But perhaps the reason for women’s high level of stress and discontentment can be also found in the attitudes and opinions of their husbands. Because as we saw men’s satisfaction assessments were much higher when compared to women. Men’s satisfaction assessment is not mostly affected by the fact whether they live together with older generation or not, which is contrary to the opinions of women. Here we could ask when interpreting data that perhaps just this men’s attitude has contributed to women’s stress. Women can interpret this as men being indifferent, that they do not see that the wife has a lot of reasons for discontentment when living together with older generation. Not to mention that in the families under study there are a lot of cases of discontentment between men and women because of doing house-work, because of different views and understandings, also in the matter of raising and schooling children. Bad relations in family, poor living conditions, husband’s uneconomic behaviour and alcohol abuse by a close relative elevates women’s level of stress. In the men’s group differences with spouse do not influence men’s level of stress as much as it does for women.

Riley & Bowen (27) claimed that women can be stressed also because it is assumed not only by the family, but also by the society that women take up the role of a helper. Furthermore – that helping the older generation is part of woman’s responsibility and is not a shared task.

It has been found that when women dedicate a lot of time to helping parents and there is tension between the two generations, then this brings with it also conflicts and little communication with their own children (46). It is said that since the children of many middle-aged women are teen-agers, it can be assumed that even for that reason the relations between parents and children are in a low point (45). Our data indicated that almost every second family under study had a teen-aged child. It became also apparent that the atmosphere in the family, relations between children and mother were considerably better when the elderly did not live directly in the family.

But there is nevertheless one aspect, which indicates that it is even beneficial for women when their or their husband’s parent(s) lives with them. This is because lot of older people help the younger family with babysitting the grand-children, offering emotional support, doing every-day domestic tasks or supporting materially. But the help being offered has both a positive and a negative side. Help is positive as it gives the younger generation free time and more means. And as the data confirmed, lot of women are satisfied with using free time at home. The elderly have probably decreased with their help women’s work load and increased their free time. But also here the overall tendency becomes apparent – satisfaction with spending free time at home is higher when not living together with the older generation. On the other hand, when older people can help family members, feel themselves useful and be a part of family life, it increases their self-worth and self-esteem (47).

Studies have shown that women feel guilty and are annoyed by accepting material help from parents and there is a feeling of discomfort even when the elderly help with home-work and babysitting (40, 45). Also in our survey these aspect increased stress. The reason why living together of multiple generations creates tension mostly for women is the syndrome of two housewives in one flat (in Estonian situation usually in a very small one), moreover in one kitchen, as it is difficult for the two women to show consideration for each other. Different generations have also different views, habits and tastes. It can be assumed that the younger generation is annoyed by being taught and directed, which leaves the impression that they are not independent in their choices. Loomis and Boots (45) claimed that women do not experience the helping-related stress in a strong family. We can also say that the families in our study were not very strong, because as the data indicated lot of women reproach their husbands – women find that their husbands do not support them enough, there are also often differences between spouses because of division of work in the family and in other important questions.

When living with parents, women’s satisfaction with spending free time at home and outside it decreased. We think that in this case the younger generation has to pay too much attention to the strengths, skills and wishes of older persons. And also the ideas and views of the older people about spending free time are certainly different from that of the younger generation.

So our study showed that living together with older generation increases stress for women, as does the need to help older people, especially in the form of providing material help and doing every-day tasks. And even receiving help from elderly has the same effect. The situation was different in the men’s group – only frequent asking for emotional support by the older people was connected for men with increase in the stress level. In most cases men were not disturbed by living with parents or having to help them or when they themselves had to accept help. This poses the question, why? Is it so that men are less involved in family life, their time and thoughts are more connected with professional life and work. When having to choose – which is more important for you, professional work or family, the Estonian men rate professional work first, but for women family stands in the first place (37, 48). Men are also calmer, more patient, do not show their emotions and as many studies have shown have generally lower level of stress than women (49, 50, 51).

When men and women offer help to their or their spouse’s parents, researchers have pointed to big differences in the nature of this assistance. Men help the older generation more materially, in practical activities and organise support services (cooking food, cleaning rooms, etc). Women do all the above, but do also more themselves and support emotionally (41). Our survey did not show gender differences so vividly as in both groups the most frequent answer was they do not need help or that help was given sometimes. At the same time we can see that women are generally more active in helping than men. In men’s group especially large proportion of help consisted of practical tasks (every fifth has helped often).

Still we do not venture to say on the bases of the data that the middle generation has a big burden when helping their parents. One of the reasons lies in the fact that the parents of middle-aged respondents are not so old that they could not cope by themselves and would need help. We think that more problems stem from a forced situation of living together, when many people in different ages live on the same space, due to which misunderstandings and differences are easy to emerge. It’s impossible to assume when multiple generations live together that everybody would be always satisfied in the same way. At the same time the source of tension can be also objective situation, because as studies have shown, Estonian youth have not enough means to help their parents materially (52). It is therefore understandable why this aspect creates tensions. And this is a problem especially for women, who when helping the older generation materially know the economic situation of their own family and that of parents, and would like to help the latter more.

The survey raised questions that need to be more seriously debated in the Estonian society. It is evident that families that have to deal with multiple roles need to be assisted. Women need most help, they expect that some of the load would be removed from them, so that they would be able to spend in addition to raising children more time on their own interests and career. Women who help feel themselves alone; men do not always understand their problems and reasons for tensions. Therefore the first step towards changing the situation would be to involve more other family members in the assisting tasks and explain the situation to them.

On the other hand – the family cannot be exposed to unending demands. The main function of the family is raising children. The task of the society would be to help the family with alleviating the stress of multiple roles, both materially and by offering services necessary for helping the older generation, by making the assistance system cheaper and more effective (52). In Estonia the rigid view widespread in the society could be a problem – helping the elderly is not the task of the state, but that of the family, as was said for example by 42% local government social workers in the study carried out by Estonian Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (5). Societal misunderstandings in this area are not only the problem of Estonia, but also the researchers in other countries have referred to important stressors that are connected with helping the older generation and lack of societal resources, which would enable to help the middle generation. It has been said that informal helpers receive too little help from the state (53).

In previous studies that have looked at relations problems of multiple generations the attention has firstly been on how does the middle generation cope with helping an older person. The value of our work lies in the fact that we included the aspect of mutual help of different generations and also if and how the members of sandwich generation are affected by living either together or separately from the older generation. It is also possible to say that the studies done so far give most often an overview of the situation of women. In the current work we tried to emphasise some differences in the attitudes of men and women.

At the same time we also see aspects and ways how to continue the analysis. It would be important to study how the economic situation and education broadens the possibilities of helping, because in this case it would be possible to use more the help of professionals when assisting the older people. Also the situation of children in multi-generation families needs attention – to what extent has the need to help the older generation influenced them and to what extent they themselves are involved in this, and how does this affect their mental welfare and relations with their parents.

Our data did not allow us to differentiate whether the respondents lived with their parents or with their spouse’s parents. Since this aspect plays a very important role in the satisfaction with family life and in family relations, then these differences should definitely be the topic of further studies. Also the coping and welfare of these grand-parents, who bring up the grand-children alone or contribute to it on a larger scale should be analysed further. An idea was emphasised in the literature and in the analysis of the research data that different generations need each other and both good relations between generations and inside generations can contribute to the increase of their welfare and ability to cope.