Well-being and (Grand)Childcare

• In Event: 4411 - Causes and Consequences of Changing Family Structure

Abstract

This work brings together research on elderly well-being, and changing family and child care structures. Using the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), I examine the effect of childcare on self-reported health, happiness, and loneliness among a nationally representative sample of adults over the age of 50 with grandchildren in the United States. Preliminary fixed effects results reveal childcare is associated with increased self-reported health and happiness, and decreased loneliness. Proposed research will continue this work to examine these effects using propensity score weighting and examining the sample by gender to account for selection into childcare and to better illuminate causal relationships between increased childcare giving and well-being outcomes among the elderly. This research adds to the growing bodies of research regarding the changing family and household structures in the U.S. in response to national aging trends, and will further propose research and policy implications to better support the elderly and their roles in these new structures

Author

• Isabelle Rocio Notter, Brown University