Health Implication among Grandparents Caring Grandchildren in Skipped Generation Families

• In Event: 2266 - Family Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 2. Coresidential Grandparents

Abstract

Grandparenting has had an increase in the U.S. because of the increased aging population. Within grandparenting, different living arrangements are reflection of the relationship between grandchildren and grandparents, and these life styles have implications on individual’s health and well-being. Caregiving grandparents, those who become completely responsible for their grandchildren in every aspect of lives, are reflection of a small group of grandparents who have a different life experience on health and well-being. These grandparents may experience detrimental effects on their health and well-being compared to grandparents without caregiving duty. This study will focus on health implication among grandparent-headed households and how unexpected caregiving work on the health and well-being among grandparents with special attention to gender variation of raising grandchildren. These households face a bigger burden when it comes to economics and financial stability to raise their grandchildren, especially grandmothers. Do the caregiving grandparents tend to report worse health and well-being compared with their counterpart? Does grandmothers tend to report worse health and well-being than grandfathers? What is the role of social support in the unexpected caregiving-health association? This study will use the third wave of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS 3, 2013-2014) to answer these questions. Using MIDUS 3 tests the association between unexpected caregiving and health among grandparents, this study will examine a more comprehensive set of explanations for the unexpected caregiving-health association, with special attentions on individual’s subjective well-beings such as depression and life satisfaction. Then, this study tends to examine how the processes vary by gender. With respect to the relationship between unexpected caregiving among grandparents on different health and well-being. The association between different measures of health and well-being (grandparents without providing care as the reference) shows that unexpected caregiving grandparents have higher depressive symptoms and lower life satisfaction compared to their counterpart.

Authors

• Tze-Li Hsu, Sam Houston State University

• Chandler Richard, Sam Houston State University