Aging & Social Change: Thirteenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Many grandparents regularly take care of grandchildren who live outside their household. Results on how such supplementary grandchild care is related to grandparents’ subjective well-being are ambiguous so far. In this study, we assume that the societal and situational context in which grandparenting takes place moderates the association between grandchild care and grandparents’ well-being. In particular, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had a profound impact in this regard: On the one hand, grandchild care during the pandemic may have been particularly straining, resulting in a more negative effect on well-being. On the other hand, grandchild care may have been particularly relevant for enhancing well-being during the pandemic, as it protected grandparents from social isolation. Using panel data from three waves of the German Ageing Survey (2014, 2017, 2020) and maximum likelihood structural equation modelling, we find that grandchild care generally fosters well-being in grandparents and its beneficial effects even increased in importance during the pandemic. In particular, grandchild care was associated with reduced feelings of loneliness for both grandmothers and grandfathers, and among grandfathers this association became even stronger during the pandemic. In addition, among grandmothers taking care of grandchildren came along with greater life satisfaction during the pandemic. By contrast, we found no evidence that grandchild care increased perceived stress before or during the pandemic for either grandmothers or grandfathers. This study therefore highlights that we need to consider the specific context in which grandchild care takes places to understand how grandchild care relates to well-being.