Grandparenthood, grandchild care and depression among older people in 18 countries

Due to the increasing central role of grandparenthood in later life, sound knowledge about its effects on older people’s health is more and more important. This paper examines the impact of becoming a grandparent, having more grandchildren, and engaging in grandchild care on depressive symptoms. Moreover, based on the structural ambivalence theory, we expect that such effects differ across contexts as (grand)childcare is differently organised across Europe. Taking advantage of the longitudinal structure of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we estimate fixed-effects models. Our results show that women face a decline in depressive symptoms when becoming grandmothers, but neither an increase in the number of grandchildren nor changes in grandchild care are associated with changes in depressive symptoms. The analyses by country highlight differences across Europe, without, however, drawing a clear pattern. Our results show that depression consequences of grandparenthood also vary between countries characterised by similar roles of grandparents. This suggests the need to make available more refined questions about grandparenthood in surveys on older people.Aufgrund der zunehmend zentralen Rolle von Großelternschaft im späteren Leben wird fundiertes Wissen zu deren Auswirkungen auf die Gesundheit älterer Menschen immer wichtiger. Dieses Papier untersucht die Auswirkungen des Übergangs in die Großelternschaft der Geburt weiterer Enkelkinder sowie des Engagements in der Enkelkinderbetreuung auf depressive Symptome. Überdies erwarten wir auf der Grundlage der Theorie der strukturellen Ambivalenz, dass sich die Stärke dieser Effekte zwischen verschiedenen Kontexten unterscheidet, da die (Enkel-)Kinderbetreuung innerhalb Europas unterschiedlich organisiert ist. Unter Nutzung der Längsschnittstruktur des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) schätzen wir Fixed-Effects-Modelle. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Frauen einen Rückgang der depressiven Symptome erleben, wenn sie erstmals Großmütter werden, aber weder eine Erhöhung der Anzahl der Enkelkinder noch Veränderungen in der Enkelkinderbetreuung sind mit Veränderungen der depressiven Symptomatik verbunden. Die Analysen nach Ländern zeigen Unterschiede innerhalb Europas auf, ohne dass jedoch ein klares Muster zu erkennen ist. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die depressionsbezogenen Folgen einer Großelternschaft auch zwischen Ländern variieren, in denen die Rollen der Großeltern ähnlich geprägt sind. Dies legt nahe, dass in Umfragen unter älteren Menschen die Fragen zur Großelternschaft weiterentwickelt werden müssen

Forever young? Prevalence and correlates of feeling old

Counting the number of birthdays a person has experienced from birth until a certain point in time i.e. chronological age, is a crude measure of ageing. Individuals with the same chronological age and health, may have different perceptions of ageing. We use a unique dataset, representative of the Italian population aged 65-74, to explore the factors associated with the perception of feeling old

A cross-country comparison of math achievement at teen age and cognitive performance 40 years later

BACKGROUND Maintaining cognitive functioning through mid- to late-life is relevant for the individual and societal aim of active ageing. Evidence shows considerable stability in individual-level rank-ordering of cognitive functioning, but little attention has been given to cohort performance over the life cycle and macro-level factors that could affect it. OBJECTIVE The main goal of this paper is to address cross-national variation in mental performance from younger to older ages. METHODS Using a quasi-longitudinal approach, we compare the relative country ranking in standardised mathematical test scores of young teenagers in 1964 from the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS) and cognitive test performance at mid-life in 2004, based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe(SHARE) for the cohort born between 1949 and 1952. RESULTS Our results show that those countries which had the highest scores in math tests taken by 13-year-old-grade-level students are not the same countries that, 40 years later, have the top performing scores in cognitive tests among mid-age adults. CONCLUSIONS This article highlights the importance of considering country-level influences on cognitive change over the life cycle, in addition to individual characteristics, and provides some descriptive findings that could be incorporated with further research on the link between specific contextual factors and cognitive functioning

Changes in Grandparental Childcare During the Pandemic and Mental Health: Evidence From England

OBJECTIVES: Policies aiming at reducing rates of hospitalization and death from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) encouraged older people to reduce physical interactions. In England, until July 2021, provision of care for grandchildren was allowed only under very limited circumstances. Evidence also suggests that reduced face-to-face interactions took a toll on mental health during the pandemic. This study aims to investigate associations between changes in grandchild care provision during the first 8/9 months of the pandemic and grandparents' mental health. METHODS: Using prepandemic data from Wave 9 (2018/2019) and the second COVID-19 substudy (November/December 2020) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we first describe changes in grandchild care provision during the pandemic to then investigate, using regression models, associations between changes in grandchild care provision and mental health (depression, quality of life, life satisfaction), while controlling for prepandemic levels of the outcome variables. RESULTS: About 10% of grandparents stopped looking after grandchildren altogether during the first 9 months of the pandemic, with 22% reporting an overall decrease in the amount of grandchild care provided. Compared to grandparents who mostly maintained unchanged their grandchild care provision, those who stopped altogether and those who mostly reduced the amount of grandchild care provided were more likely to report poorer mental health, even accounting for prepandemic health. DISCUSSION: While measures to limit physical contact and shield older people were necessary to reduce the spread of COVID-19, policymakers should acknowledge potential adverse consequences for mental health among grandparents who experienced changes in their roles as grandchild caregivers

COVID-19 precautionary behaviors and vaccine acceptance among older individuals: The role of close kin

The family plays a central role in shaping health behaviors of its members through social control and support mechanisms. We investigate whether and to what extent close kin (i.e., partner and children) matter for older people in taking on precautionary behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask) and vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Drawing on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we combine its Corona Surveys (June to September 2020 and June to August 2021) with pre-COVID information (October 2019 to March 2020). We find that having close kin (especially a partner) is associated with a higher probability of both adopting precautionary behaviors and accepting a COVID-19 vaccine. Results are robust to controlling for other potential drivers of precautionary behaviors and vaccine acceptance and to accounting for coresidence with kin. Our findings suggest that policymakers and practitioners may differently address kinless individuals when promoting public policy measures

Close Social Networks Among Older Adults:The Online and Offline Perspectives

Qualitative studies have found that the use of Information and Communication Technologies is related to an enhanced quality of life for older adults, as these technologies might act as a medium to access social capital regardless of geographical distance. In order to quantitatively study the association between older people’s characteristics and the likelihood of having a network of close friends offline and online, we use data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and data from Facebook. Using a novel approach to analyze aggregated and anonymous Facebook data within a regression framework, we show that the associations between having close friends and age, sex, and being a parent are the same offline and online. Migrants who use internet are less likely to have close friends offline, but migrants who are Facebook users are more likely to have close friends online, suggesting that digital relationships may compensate for the potential lack of offline close friendships among older migrants

Ethnicity and grandparental child care in the United Kingdom

Caring for one's grandchildren has become a more common experience for individuals partly as a result of a longer overlap between the lives of grandparents and their grandchildren. Existing research shows that around 50 per cent of grandparents engage in some grandparental child care in most European countries, however, this proportion is higher among older people with a migrant background, partly due to greater economic necessity among migrant families. Research has also highlighted ethnic differences in parents’ child-care selection, even after controlling for their socio-economic status. Building on these strands of work, this paper investigates the differences in the use of (grandparental) child care among parents from different Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups in the United Kingdom, using data from Understanding Society. The results show that parents from Other White, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African communities are less likely to use child care than White British parents, while the opposite is true for Caribbean parents. However, among parents using child care, individuals from the Other White, Caribbean and African groups are less likely than the White British majority to be using grandparental child care as a supplement to other child-care types, or on its own. Ethnic differentials in the use of child care per se and grandparental child care in particular, have significant policy implications, and may mask other kinds of ethnic differences

Intergenerational family caregiving in welfare policy context

Definition Intergenerational family caregiving refers to exchanges up and down family lines aimed at nurturing the needs of others. Caregiving is more than a task; it involves emotional and relationship work

Bowling Together: Scientific Collaboration Networks of Demographers at European Population Conferences

Studies of collaborative networks of demographers are relatively scarce. Similar studies in other social sciences provide insight into scholarly trends of both the fields and characteristics of their successful scientists. Exploiting a unique database of metadata for papers presented at six European Population Conferences, this report explores factors explaining research collaboration among demographers. We find that (1) collaboration among demographers has increased over the past 10 years, however, among co-authored papers, collaboration across institutions remains relatively unchanged over the period, (2) papers based on core demographic subfields such as fertility, mortality, migration and data and methods are more likely to involve multiple authors and (3) multiple author teams that are all female are less likely to co-author with colleagues in different institutions. Potential explanations for these results are discussed alongside comparisons with similar studies of collaboration networks in other related social sciences

Like Mother(-in-Law) Like Daughter? Influence of the Older Generation’s Fertility Behaviours on Women’s Desired Family Size in Bihar, India

This paper investigates the associations between preferred family size of women in rural Bihar, India and the fertility behaviours of their mother and mother-in-law. Scheduled interviews of 440 pairs of married women aged 16–34 years and their mothers-in-law were conducted in 2011. Preferred family size is first measured by Coombs scale, allowing us to capture latent desired number of children and then categorized into three categories (low, medium and high). Women’s preferred family size is estimated using ordered logistic regression. We find that the family size preferences are not associated with mother’s fertility but with mother’s education. Mother-in-law’s desired number of grandchildren is positively associated with women’s preferred family size. However, when the woman has higher education than her mother-in-law, her preferred family size gets smaller, suggesting that education provides women with greater autonomy in their decision-making on childbearing