Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effect of sandwich-generation caregiving (caregiving for elders and children simultaneously) on employed caregivers’ job satisfaction when compared with non-sandwich caregiving patterns of no caregiving, children-only caregiving and elders-only caregiving. This study also aims to explore whether depression mediates this effect and whether three types of caregivers-friendly work time (less work-time length, less nonstandard work-time schedule and more work-time autonomy) buffer these direct and indirect effects.Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 7,571 Chinese employees is chosen from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies through a multistage stratified sampling design.Findings: After controlling for employees’ sociodemographic, work and other caregiving characteristics, this study finds that sandwich-generation caregiving is indeed more likely to negatively affect employees’ job satisfaction when compared with no caregiving and elders-only caregiving, but to the same extent as children-only caregiving. This study also suggests that the effect of sandwich-generation caregiving on job satisfaction is mediated by employees’ depression and that three types of caregiver-friendly work time help to weaken the negative effects on employees’ depression and job satisfaction.Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the negative spillover effect and its mechanisms of caregiving on employees’ job satisfaction through focusing on a special caregivers group: employed sandwich-generation caregivers. These results shed light on the importance of extending caregiver studies to the workplace and provide implications for organization managers and human resources practitioners to design caregiver-friendly workplace policies to maintain employed caregivers’ work-family balance.

This study aims to investigate the mediating effect of coping styles in the relationship between stressful life events and life satisfaction among Chinese older adults. To test the hypotheses, cross-sectional data (n = 8799) from the 2016 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) were analyzed by Stata 15/SE in this study. Results indicated that stressful life events directly affected life satisfaction. Moreover, the association between stressful life events and life satisfaction was partially mediated by coping styles. This study had implications for the current body of knowledge and provided empirical evidence for social work practice and social policy.