Grandparenting and Cognitive Functioning in China

Intersectional Inequalities in the Transition to Grandparenthood and Cognitive Functioning: A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy

OBJECTIVES

In aging societies, more people become vulnerable to experiencing cognitive decline. Simultaneously, the role of grandparenthood is central for older adults and their families. Our study investigates inequalities in the level and trajectories of cognitive functioning among older adults, focusing on possible intersectional effects of social determinants and grandparenthood as a life course transition that may contribute to delaying cognitive decline.

METHODS

Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe, we analyzed a sample of 19,953 individuals aged 50-85 without grandchildren at baseline. We applied multilevel analysis of individual heterogeneity and discriminatory accuracy to investigate variation in cognitive functioning across 48 intersectional strata, defined by sex/gender, migration, education, and occupation. We allowed the impact of becoming a grandparent on cognitive functioning trajectories to vary across strata by including random slopes.

RESULTS

Intersectional strata accounted for 17.43% of the overall variance in cognitive functioning, with most of the stratum-level variation explained by additive effects of the stratum-defining characteristics. Transition to grandparenthood was associated with higher cognitive functioning, showing a stronger effect for women. Stratum-level variation in the grandparenthood effect was modest, especially after accounting for interactions between grandparenthood and the stratum-defining variables.

DISCUSSION

This study highlights the importance of social determinants for understanding heterogeneities in older adults' level of cognitive functioning and its association with the transition to grandparenthood. Cumulative disadvantages negatively affect cognitive functioning, hence adopting an intersectional lens is useful to decompose inequalities and derive tailored interventions to promote equal healthy aging.

The Way I See It: Older Adults with Mental Illness Share Their Views of Community Life Using Photovoice

The importance of community involvement for both older adults and individuals coping with mental illness is well documented. Yet, barriers to community integration for adults with mental illness such as social stigma, discrimination, and economic marginalization are often exacerbated by increased health and mobility challenges among older adults. Using photovoice, nine older adults with mental illness represented their views of community in photographs and group discussions over a six-week period. Participant themes of community life included physical spaces, valued social roles, and access to resources in the community. Themes were anchored by older adults' perceptions of historical and cultural time comparisons between 'how things used to be' and 'how things are now.' Barriers to community integration were often related to factors such as age, mobility, and resources rather than to mental health status. Program evaluation results suggest photovoice can promote self-reflection, learning, and collaboration among older adults with mental illness.

Intersectional inequalities in the transition to grandparenthood and cognitive functioning: A longitudinal Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA)

Objectives

With aging societies, more people become vulnerable to experiencing cognitive decline. While normal aging is associated with a deterioration in certain cognitive abilities, little is known about how social determinants intersect to create late-life cognitive functioning inequalities. Simultaneously, the role of grandparenthood is central for older adults and their families. There are indications that social determinants intersect to modulate the effect of the transition to grandparenthood, but further evidence is needed. Our study investigates the relation of transition to grandparenthood with cognitive functioning and explores differences across intersectional strata.

Methods

Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we analyzed a sample of 19,953 individuals aged 50-85 without grandchildren at the baseline. We applied Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy to investigate cognitive functioning differences across 48 intersectional strata, defined by sex/gender, migration, education, and occupation. We allowed the impact of becoming a grandparent to vary across strata by including random slopes.

Results

Intersectional strata accounted for 17.43% of the overall variance in cognitive functioning, with most of the stratum-level variation explained by additive effects of the stratum-defining characteristics. Transition to grandparenthood was associated with higher cognitive functioning, with a stronger effect for women. Stratum-level variation in the grandparenthood effect was modest.

Discussion

This study highlights the importance of social determinants for understanding heterogeneities in the association of transition to grandparenthood with cognitive functioning. Adopting an intersectional lens is useful to decompose inequalities and derive tailored interventions to promote equal healthy aging.

Working from Home in Urban China during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Assemblages of Work-Family Interference

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of workers globally have been forced to work from home. Empirical data from Chinese cities in the Hubei province reveal work productivity decreased among many respondents working from home in 2020, primarily due to family interference with work. Such interference stems not only from the domain of daily life but also from other family members' e-working and e-learning. Conversely, respondents' work interferes with family; thus, interference operates bi-directionally. This article proposes an analytical framework of work-family interference along three dimensions: work-daily life, work-work, work-study, and each dimension can be understood through four distinct aspects: temporality, physicality, vocality, digitality. Remote workers encounter 'assemblages of work-family interference', consisting of a heterogeneous mixture of these dimensions and aspects. Furthermore, some factors (e.g., living patterns, work culture, digital infrastructure) constrain effective work-family boundary management among urban households.

Grandparenting and subjective well-being in China: The moderating effects of residential location, gender, age, and income

Grandparenting is a social determinant of older adults' subjective well-being (SWB) worldwide, and is receiving increasing scholarly attention. Grandparenting is particularly prevalent in China because of the increasing number of women in the labor force, shortages of daycare services, and intergenerational bonds. Based on three waves (2011, 2013, and 2015) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (n = 14,846), we used pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) regression to examine the association between grandparenting and Chinese older adults' SWB and the moderating effects of residential location (rural/urban), gender, age, and income. We measured SWB by four outcomes: self-rated health, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and cognitive function. Our findings indicate that intensive grandparenting is positively associated with older adults' life satisfaction. Older adults providing a low-to-high intensity of grandparenting have better cognitive function than non-caregivers. Among caregivers, a moderate level of grandparenting is associated with better cognitive function. Residential location, age, and income are significant moderators. For example, high-intensity grandparenting is positively associated with rural grandparents' but not urban grandparents' life satisfaction. Although younger grandparents have better self-rated health, higher life satisfaction, and fewer depressive symptoms than their older counterparts if they provide grandparenting care, grandparenting is more beneficial for older grandparents' cognitive function. Both low and high intensities of grandparenting are positively related to self-rated health and cognitive function for grandparents with lower incomes. Overall, the findings of this study indicate how grandparenting is related to the SWB of older people in China in different social groups and of people living in different locations.

What doesn't kill you makes you "smarter": The long-term association between exposure to epidemic and cognition

Emerging epidemics have devastating impacts on people's lives and livelihoods. However, acting as a severe health shock, exposure to an epidemic may induce positive changes in health behaviors among survivors, thereby leading to long-lasting improvement in population health. This study examined the long-term association between exposure to the 2002-2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak and middle-aged and older Chinese adults' cognition assessed in 2011-2015. Drawing on data from the 2011-2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we found that community exposure to the outbreak was associated with significantly higher scores on episodic memory, after adjusting for demographic characteristics, adulthood socioeconomic status and health, and community socioeconomic conditions. No such a significant association was found for mental intactness. Mediation analysis showed that community exposure to the epidemic was associated with increased participation in social activities, maintaining close family relationships with adult children and grandchildren, and increased participation in regular physical exercise, all of which were positively associated with cognitive functioning in middle-aged and older Chinese adults. These findings suggest that positive post-epidemic behavioral changes are possible and may have long-term health benefits for survivors.

Caring as curing: Grandparenting and depressive symptoms in China

Research on grandparenting (i.e., caring for grandchildren) and mental health in Asian contexts has been limited, despite the rapid growth of older adults who take care of grandchildren. This study aims to investigate how grandparenting influences depressive symptoms in China. Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011-2015, N = 4354), we conducted fixed effects regression models to examine the association between various types of grandparenting and depressive symptoms among older adults between the ages of 45 and 80. The results show that for grandparents, providing care to their grandchildren in skipped-generation households (i.e., grandparent-grandchildren families without adult children) is associated with a lower level of depressive symptoms compared to providing no care, after controlling for socioeconomic status, health behaviors, social support, and basic demographic characteristics. Other types of care (i.e., multigenerational household grandparenting, and part-time and full-time noncoresident grandparenting) are not significantly linked to caregiving grandparents' depressive symptoms. Overall, our findings suggest that sociocultural contexts need to be considered in explaining the different mental health implications of grandparenting.