The Cedrunomist

  Executive Summary Middle-aged Indians are increasingly stretched as they support ageing parents and dependent adult children at the same time. Longer lives, expensive education and weak safety nets have turned this into a structural squeeze, making early and disciplined financial planning a necessity rather than a choice. Caught in the Middle Middle-aged Indians today find themselves managing two financial responsibilities that now arrive together rather than in sequence. Parents are living longer and increasingly require sustained care, while children continue to depend on family support well into adulthood. Both demands are costly, ongoing and difficult to avoid. This group is commonly described as the “sandwich generation” , a term coined by American social worker Dorothy Miller in the 1980s to describe adults caring for ageing parents while raising children. In India, what was once a brief overlap between responsibilities has expanded into a long-term condition that can pers...