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Millennials hope to break sandwich generation cycle
In collectivist cultures such as in Indonesia, it is common for aging parents to depend on their children to take care of them and for financial support.
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Millennials, especially in urban areas, are trying to become more financially independent in their old age to stop the burden of the sandwich generation falling onto their children.
(Shutterstock/eamesBot)
F
ebrianto Adi Saputro, a 28-year-old journalist from Depok, West Java, has been chipping in for his parents’ daily expenses and to help pay for the education of his two younger sisters for the past four years.
"My father has been working odd jobs since he was laid off from a private company several years ago. He does not have a steady income, while my mother, as a housewife, does not have any earnings," he said on Thursday. "So they largely depend on me to cover their daily needs."
Febrianto, who lives with his grandmother, mother, sisters, uncle and cousin, uses around 20-30 percent of his monthly income of around Rp 5 million (US$348) for his family, leaving only a small sum of money to save up for his own future.
Sometimes, he had to spend large amounts of his savings to cover for his family's unexpected expenses, such as for his father's hospital fees when he contracted COVID-19 earlier this year.
Febrianto is among millions of millennials in Indonesia who are part of the sandwich generation, a group of people who are caring for their children or younger siblings and aging parents or grandparents at the same time. They are mostly in their early or middle adulthood.
In collectivist cultures such as in Indonesia, where family plays an important role to most people, it is common for aging parents to depend on their children to take care of them and for financial support.
A 2020 survey by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) found that most of the 26 million elderly population did not have sufficient retirement savings, with around 78 percent of elderly households, or households with at least one elderly member, dependent on earnings from working relatives as the main source of income. Meanwhile, only 6 and 0.5 percent of the elderly had pension funds and assets respectively that were enough to cover their needs.
