The Main object of this essay is to present the opportunities and challenges of the sandwich generation, age group 30-54, in Iran. Even though this generation has its own problems such as family matters, economic and financial shortages, and social disintegrations, they have some difficulties attributed to two other generations, which are the elderly and youth. According to our understanding of the Iranian culture, these two generations have staying together in the home, and should support their children as well as their parents. This is the main root of their challenges over time.  Hence, it is my aim to present how this makes problems and challenges for them.

The concept of “generation” is not that old. It has been launched  in sociology by Karl Manheim, American sociologists in the 20^th century.  He has presented this concept to critique Marx’s conceptual framework that is entitled “social class”. Marx has tried to analyze social changes based on social class, while Manheim did not find this sufficient and he substituted the new concept, social generation. After Manheim, many sociologists have evaluated the concept of generation and developed sub-concepts such as teenager , youth, elderly, rap, baby boom, veterans, recession, inflation, street walker, and sandwich generation. Each of these sub-concepts has been used by different researchers and has different meanings. In a general sense, over time when researchers have done surveys and new social and cultural factors and conceptual discourses have been raised, some of the historians of ideas nominated it “generational studies.” This has come to Iran and some, including myself, have done some researches and found out that the main social and cultural factors to social changes are youth and sandwich generations.

The main characteristic of generation is age. Each generation is categorized in a different age group. They are the teenager generation, 0-14 years old, the youth generation, 15-29 years old, the sandwich generation, 30-54 years old and the elderly generation, 55 years old and over. Besides age, there are some other social, political and cultural factors which are important to make difference among these generations such as experiences, social events, and ideological emphasize.

To know the situation of the different generations in Iran, there are two kinds of data: (1) the national census and (2) social researches which have been done by sociologists over the last three decades.In terms of some surveys which have been done by researchers such as Azadarmaki (2004 and 2006) and so on, in the following sentences, some of the main findings which have been derived from the above sources is presented:

1- Even though the youth generation is very important in cultural changes and social events, the sandwich generation has the main role in family and society. Because, the father and the mother are working, running the society, and managing the family. Mostly, they could say which way the family members are supposed to go.

2 - This generation has more responsibilities compared to others.

3 - This generation cares more about youth’s education and safety.

4- This generation should handle the elderly’s health and happiness.

5- The member of this generation get older but they do not have any spare time to enjoy.

5- This generation has not been supported by government and has been left by her/him self.

It can be seen that this generation has a difficult situation. Let’s mention some of these difficulties as possible:

1. Even though the generation has more power compared to others, they can not support their family members to get high education financially.

2. Even though the society is more modern than before technologically, they have difficulties to get proper jobs and buy their own house as they would like.

3. Even though the society is rich compared to others in the Middle East, the majority of people are under the poverty line. Hence, this generation mostly has difficulty to pay their health insurance.

4. The price of foods, goods, and housing are high. This generation should pay for all the generations’ expenses.

In terms of the above points, the generation encountered some economic, social, and cultural challenges. The following are some of the important challenges will be mentioned:

1-   The sandwich generation has thought that it has to support the elderly and youth generations simultaneously. This is the root of the major challenge which the generation has gotten, because the youth generation is seeking its freedom and the elderly generation is proposing their demands. Hence, the generation is between the two generations and should have listened to their demands and proposals.

2-   It might be that this generation has less free time and hobbies, but they are supposed to make all amenities for the free time of the youth generation.

3-   Even though when they were children, their parents did not pay more attention to their social and cultural changes, they must care for their parents, the elderly generation and others.

4-   In terms of their economic shortages, they can not support these two generations, but culturally they are supposed to do it.

5-   They would like to have all of the family members in their home, but their apartments or small houses do not have enough rooms for them at the same time.

6-   As we have learned ,  the generation is part of the nuclear family, but they are not, because most of the time all of the family members such as parents and children come by.

7-   If they make the decision to put their parents (members of the elderly generation) in a nursing home, they think that they made a sin. They think that they did wrong and their parents are not satisfied for it.

8-   If they did not scarify for their children, they would not be  happy for what they have done.

And so on.

As the cursory review of the statistics of the censuses and researches has shown, this generation encounters many social, cultural, political, and economic problems and challenges. These challenges can not be solved in a short period of time. It needs a lot of effort by different social institutions, such as the state, as well as the family members’ contributions. This situation needs to be worked on as soon as possible. If there are no any efforts toward it, the family can be destroyed or changed in the opposite way as we predicted. On the other hand, somehow with some tools and ways these problems should be considered, because these challenges can be causes of other disasters.