Family histories and the demography of grandparenthood

The Effect of Grandparenting on the Depression and Life Satisfaction among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese Adults

Given the prevalence of depressive mental health symptoms among Chinese adults of grandparenting age in recent decades, a better understanding of how depression and life satisfaction among middle-aged and older adults in China are affected by their role as grandparents is called for. This study examines the relationship between grandparenting and depression and life satisfaction among Chinese adults using multilevel regression models based on a multilevel matching dataset formulated from the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and the 2018 China City Statistical Yearbook. The results show that for adults who take care of their grandchildren, living with their children can significantly reduce depression. Meanwhile, whereas spending more time taking care of grandchildren can lower life satisfaction, taking care of more grandchildren is related to higher life satisfaction. The findings of this study should help policymakers improve the quality of life of Chinese adults through better-targeted approaches.

The transition to grandparenthood: No consistent evidence for change in the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction

Intergenerational relations have received close attention in the context of population aging and increased childcare provision by grandparents. However, few studies have investigated the psychological consequences of becoming a grandparent. In a preregistered test of grandparenthood as a developmental task in middle and older adulthood, we used representative panel data from the Netherlands ( N = 563) and the United States ( N = 2210) to analyze first-time grandparents’ personality and life satisfaction development. We tested gender, employment, and grandchild care as moderators. To address confounding, we employed propensity score matching using two procedures: matching grandparents with parents and nonparents to achieve balance in different sets of carefully selected covariates. Multilevel models demonstrated mean-level stability of the Big Five personality traits and life satisfaction over the transition to grandparenthood, and no consistent moderation effects—contrary to the social investment principle. The few small effects of grandparenthood on personality development did not replicate across samples. We found no evidence of larger inter-individual differences in change in grandparents compared to the controls or of lower rank-order stability. Our findings add to recent critical re-examinations of the social investment principle and are discussed in light of characteristics that might moderate grandparents’ personality development.

Grandparents in Italy: trends and changes in the demography of grandparenthood from 1998 to 2016

In this article, we explore the last two decades of changes in the demography of grandparenthood in Italy, by means of a set of measures: the proportion of men and women becoming grandparents by age and time, the age at transition to grandparenthood and its crossing with a set of life events and the length of grandparenthood. We used data from the four waves of the Survey on Family and Social Subjects carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in 1998, 2003, 2009 and 2016. Overall, the median age at which half of the population over 35 is made up of grandparents moved forward by at least 5 years during the two observed decades. The postponement of grandparenthood is evident in middle age: between 55 and 64 the ratio of grandparents to non-grandparents decreased significantly by about 10%. Overall, among people who had ever had children, the median age at the transition to grandparenthood advanced by three years from 1998 to 2016, both for men (59 to 62) and women (54 to 57). This difference is greater than that observed for age at parenthood and equal to the advantage gained in terms of life expectancy at age 60. Thus, despite increasing life expectancy, because of the postponement of grandparenthood, the shared period of life for grandparents and grandchildren has not increased, but rather remained stable.

The Powerful Combination of Cross-country Comparisons and Life-History Data

In this paper we discuss the value of international comparative empirical studies within the broad field of the economics of ageing. We argue the value is particularly great when such comparative research is based on long life-history data on participants, collected using large-scale autobiographical life-history methods. We identify particular aspects of such comparisons that create value relative to other empirical methods and also briefly survey recent key papers to illustrate each aspect. Finally we provide a short new application of this method, using data from SHARE and ELSA, to look at the question of how labour markets for older workers in Europe have been changing across cohorts and the extent to which this has been associated with changing retirement ages in public pension systems.