Type of care on infancy matters: The contribution of grandparents’ care

• In Event: How grandparents in China, Chile and the United States influence children’s development

Abstract

The care of very young children often occurs outside the child’s own home at the home of a caregiver rather than at a childcare center (Adams et al., 2007). The proportion of children under two who receive care under informal arrangements (involving grandparents, other relatives, or non-relatives) is 36% in the US and 34%, on average, in OECD member countries (OECD Family Database, 2016). Despite their high prevalence, little is known about the association of these types of informal care on young children's development (Walker et al., 2007), as most studies have focused on children aged three and older (Gambaro et al., 2014), living in industrialized regions, and attending center-based care (Bornstein et al., 2012).

There is a critical need to extend studies to infancy (as non-maternal care often starts before age 1), focusing on (a) informal types of non-maternal care, especially grandparent care, as well as (b) center-based care, and (c) a much more comprehensive range of study populations. This study aims at extending the literature about childcare experience in infancy and cognitive, language, and socioemotional functioning, by focusing on children in a wide range of non-maternal care settings in Chile.

Compared to children in informal care, children who attend center-based care generally displayed better academic outcomes (Bradley & Vandell, 2007; Loeb et al., 2007). However, studies on grandparent care yielded mixed results. Some studies found that there was a positive association between grandparent care (compared to maternal care) and children's vocabulary scores (Hansen & Hawkes, 2009) and cognitive and language development (Narea et al., 2020). In contrast, Boca et al. (2014), found that children cared for by grandparents are worse at problem-solving.

One hypothesis about heterogeneity in the association between grandparent care and child development is the range of quality found in this type of care. For example, Australian grandparents reported better communication and overall relationship quality with the infant relative to reports by caregivers at center-based care (Gray et al., 2005). In contrast, Leach et al. (2008) found that grandparents offered 10-month-olds fewer activities than center-based teachers.

Infants who had received one of three types of non-maternal care — center-based, grandparent, relative, or non-relative care — were compared to those who had exclusively experienced maternal care. This study examined associations between the type of care that the infant received and the child's cognitive, language, and socio-emotional development, taking data from the first wave of Chilean Longitudinal Study One Thousand First Days (N=1161; Mage=13.2 months). Using a series of lineal regressions and controlling by different children, home, and maternal's characteristics, we found that compared to maternal care, children in center-based care had higher cognitive development (measured by Bayley Cognitive Scale-III) and more Extraversion (according to IBQ). Interestingly, children in grandparent care had higher cognitive and expressive language scores compared with children in maternal care. Also, differences by maternal mental health were explored. Our findings raise the question of whether governments should invest resources in center-based care and other prevalent types of non-maternal care in Latin America, such as grandparent care.

Authors

• Marigen Narea, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Presenting Author

• Samanta Alarcón