Grandchildren and Their Grandparents Labor Supply

P. Rupert and Giulio Zanella

Working Papers from Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna

Abstract: We study how becoming a grandparent affects grandparents labor supply. In a simple model of the allocation of time in which seniors care about their offspring s welfare and also value time spent with family children, the sign of the effect is ambiguous. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics we find evidence that becoming a grandparent causes a reduction of employed grandmother s hours of work. We identify a lower bound of about 190. This effect originates towards the bottom of the hours distribution (i.e., among women less attached to the labor market). For employed grandfathers, the effect is also negative, originates towards the top of the hours distribution (i.e., where overtime work is substantial), but is smaller and more imprecisely estimated than for women. We also find that for working grandmothers the effect is stronger the closer grandparents and grandchildren live and during the first years since becoming a grandparent (i.e., when the grandchildren are younger). The extensive margin of grandparenting (becoming a grandparent) turns out to be much more important in generating these effects than the corresponding intensive margin (having additional grandchildren).

JEL-codes: D19 J13 J14 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Grandchildren and their grandparents' labor supply (2018)
Working Paper: Grandchildren and Their Grandparents' Labor Supply (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp937

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