Grandparental childcare and subjective well-being: The role of activities and reasons for care

Abstract

Despite extensive research on the impact of grandchild care on grandparents' well-being, no studies have examined the frequency of activities that grandparents engage in with their grandchildren or the reasons for care using nationally representative data. We address this gap using waves 8 (2016/2017) and 9 (2018/19) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a nationally representative study of English older adults. We employ hybrid regression models to distinguish between within- and between-individual effects on grandparents’ subjective wellbeing, as captured by quality of life and depressive symptoms. Our findings show that the mostly positive relationships between frequency of grandparental activities and reasons for care and well-being are largely due to between-grandparent differences rather than within-grandparent changes over time. Within-grandparent analyses show a mostly non-significant impact of increased grandparental activities on well-being, except for a detrimental effect when grandchildren stay overnight or are cared for when sick. The influence of reasons for care are more nuanced. Changes in reasons, such as giving parents a break or allowing them to go out in the evening, are significantly associated with a worsening of elevated depressive symptoms. Conversely, changes such as helping grandchildren develop as people or feeling engaged with young people improve the quality of life for the same grandparents over time. When grandparental care is provided because it is difficult to refuse we find a negative association with well-being between grandparents. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of more detailed information on grandparent-grandchild interactions and reasons for care to better understand well-being outcomes.