Grandparenthood, Grandparenting, and Working Longer: Do the Genders of Grandparent and of Grandchild’s Parent Matter?

• In Event: 3129 - Intergenerational Relationships

Abstract

Improved life expectancy has extended the length of grandparenthood, while the rise of working mothers along with insufficient public provision of childcare assistance in the United States has increased the importance of grandparental role in childcare. On the other hand, the greying of America has reinforced the importance of extended work life. As a result, grandparents are increasingly liable to conflicts in the work family interface. I test existence and extent of this work-family tradeoff and examine how this experience for different groups of older workers varies. In particular, I focus on the genders of grandparent (Generation 1) and of grandchild’s parent (Generation 2). Are grandmothers more likely to quit working than grandfathers upon a grandchild’s birth because women are traditionally considered main caretakers? Are grandparents more likely to quit working after their daughters give births than after their sons’ children are born, either because they are closer to their daughters or because they feel more obliged to help out their daughters, who likely bear the primary responsibility for childcare? Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I find that birth of a new grandchild is associated with lower risk of transition out of employment for grandparents of both genders and that this association is driven primarily by births of paternal grandchildren. This suggests that gender of grandchild’s parent, rather than grandparent’s own gender, is an important factor in grandparents’ work decisions.

Author

• In Jeong Hwang, Harvard University