The ‘Sandwich Generation’ Starts at 34—Just as Homeownership Slips Away

Rachael Piltch-Loeb was just 29 when she suddenly found herself pulled between two generations.

Six months after the birth of her first child, her father was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Until then, most of the demands on her time had pointed forward: a new baby, a promising career in academia. But her father’s diagnosis added a new set of responsibilities.

Piltch-Loeb began traveling between her home in New York City and her parents’ in Cambridge, MA, trying to establish a routine for her infant son while also being physically present for her father.

“Needing to or wanting to be physically there for my parents was a complicated reality for sure,” she tells Realtor.com®.

Piltch-Loeb had become part of the “sandwich generation”—Americans caring simultaneously for children and aging relatives. And while she entered that role particularly young, new research suggests the squeeze is arriving early for many families.

The average age of taking on sandwich responsibilities is 34, according to a new survey from Care.com.

The findings point to a costly collision: Dual caregiving responsibilities are landing during the same years when younger adults are trying to make the leap into homeownership, drawing on the savings and earnings they need to get there.

The squeeze hits both savings and income

“The financial impact of caregiving can be pronounced for sandwich caregivers,” George Kueppers, senior research manager at the National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC), tells Realtor.com. “Having kids is expensive in and of itself. So experiencing that financial impact as a result of caregiving [for an older relative] can be a little bit more pronounced.”

In May, Jason Resendez, president and CEO of the NAC, testified before Congress about the financial toll of sandwich caregiving. He told the Senate Special Committee on Aging that 58% of sandwich caregivers experience at least one negative financial impact from providing care.

“Caregiving can deplete savings so quickly,” Piltch-Loeb says. “End-of-life care, long-term care facilities. If a parent does move into a long-term care facility, it can be astronomical in cost. I mean, you’re talking about a few thousand dollars, if not more, a month.”

To her point, family caregivers spend an average of about $7,200 a year out of pocket on care-related expenses, according to AARP.

To cover those costs, many sandwich-generation adults are drawing from their own savings. As many as 28% had withdrawn money from emergency savings to cover caregiving costs, while 26% had taken on more debt, according to a New York Life survey. Nearly half (47%) said there had been a point in the previous year when caregiving costs left their household unable to meet essential expenses.

But sandwich caregivers may also be paying an invisible toll: giving up promotions, raises, and job opportunities that could shape how much they earn for years to come.

Piltch-Loeb encountered that trade-off repeatedly while researching “The Millennial Caregiver,” a practical guidebook she wrote inspired by her experience caring for her father. Drawing on her background as a public-health researcher, she interviewed younger caregivers and found that many had changed where they lived or worked around a parent’s needs.

“The math wasn’t mathing,” she says of their calculation.

“I spoke with with folks who made job decisions based on their caregiving role in terms of location, in terms of the specific function of their job, and who opted to move back home, even with their parent, because of the parent’s needs and the cost of living,” Piltch-Loeb says.

Care.com found that pattern extended well beyond the people Piltch-Loeb interviewed: 61% of millennial sandwich caregivers said they had turned down a promotion, raise, or new professional opportunity because of caregiving.

The squeeze, then, can come from both sides: Families may need more money to care for two generations just as caregiving is drawing down savings, adding debt, or limiting the work that generates new income.

Caregiving is arriving before owning a home

What makes the age-34 finding especially consequential is where many younger adults are financially when those demands begin.

Two decades ago, 40% of adults aged 25 to 34 owned a home. By 2024, that share had fallen to just 29%, according to new research from the Urban Institute. That measure counts all young adults—including those living with parents, relatives, or roommates rather than only those heading households of their own.

It’s just one measure of how young adults are struggling to find their financial feet at the point in life their parents had.

Affordability is a major driver, according to the study, as higher home prices and mortgage rates made it harder for younger adults to form independent households and buy homes. But researchers also pointed to rising childcare costs and labor market pressures as possible contributors.

At 34, those responsibilities are beginning at the upper end of an age group in which fewer than 3 in 10 adults owned a home in 2024.

And the overlap can last for years: Care.com respondents said they spent an average of 6.4 years caring for children and an older relative at the same time.

That is part of what makes the timing so consequential. If caregiving drains savings or constrains earnings before someone has bought a home, it can push that purchase further out.

The wealth implications can reach the next generation

That delay can reverberate for decades.

Households that bought between ages 28 and 32 had 22.5% more net worth by age 50, according to research from Realtor.com. That’s the equivalent of about $119,000 more for a typical midlife household, even after accounting for differences in income, education, and marital status.

The gap narrows with later entry into homeownership. Those who bought between 33 and 37—around the average age of sandwich caregivers—had an 11.2% wealth advantage, or about $59,000, relative to those who waited until their 40s. For buyers between 38 and 42, that gap fell to just 1.5%.

Of course, that does not prove caregiving causes people to buy later, but it does show why a financial disruption during these years can carry lasting consequences.

Earlier buyers have more years to pay down their mortgages and potentially benefit from home price appreciation—and Realtor.com found that the gains extended beyond the home itself. Earlier buyers also accumulated more nonhousing assets by midlife.

Piltch-Loeb says she saw another way caregiving can alter the transfer of wealth between generations. Some older parents who had accumulated savings they expected to leave to their children instead needed those assets to pay for their own care.

“The other kind of reality is boomers or parents who maybe plan to pass money on to their children or who had more savings either go into debt or no longer kind of have that nest egg to share with the next generation, and that’s not to say that they need to,” Piltch-Loeb says. “That’s the reality, but it does change kind of the financial calculus for a family greatly.”

Those transfers matter because family housing wealth can give the next generation its own head start. Realtor.com also found that adults who spent their entire childhood in homeowner households were 18.4 percentage points more likely to own a home by age 35 than those who grew up entirely in renter households.

That creates the broader risk for families caught between generations: Older parents may be spending down accumulated assets to pay for care just as their adult children are trying to establish housing wealth of their own.

For caregivers taking on those responsibilities around 34, the financial consequences can move in both directions at once—reducing what may be passed down from the generation above while making it harder to build the wealth that could eventually support the generation below.