Does Grandparenting Pay off for the Next Generations? Intergenerational Effects of Grandparental Care

Mara Barschkett, C. Katharina Spiess and Elena Ziege

No 1152, SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research from DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

Abstract: Grandparents act as the third largest caregiver after parental care and daycare in Germany, as in many Western societies. Adopting a double-generation perspective, we investigate the causal impact of this care mode on children’s health, socio-emotional behavior, and school outcomes, as well as parental well-being. Based on representative German panel data sets, and exploiting arguably exogenous variations in geographical distance to grandparents, we analyze age-specific effects, taking into account counterfactual care modes. Our results suggest null or negative effects on children’s outcomes: If children three years and older are in full-time daycare or school and, in addition, cared for by grandparents, they have more health and socio-emotional problems, in particular conduct problems. In contrast, our results point to positive effects on parental satisfaction with the childcare situation and leisure. The effects for mothers correspond to an increase of 11 percent in satisfaction with the childcare situation and 14 percent in satisfaction with leisure, compared to the mean, although the results differ by child age. While the increase in paternal satisfaction with the childcare situation is, at 21 percent, even higher, we do not find an effect on paternal satisfaction with leisure.

Keywords: grandparental childcare; socio-emotional outcomes; cognitive outcomes; parental well-being; instrumental variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 I21 I31 J13 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 p.
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur 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:
Working Paper: Does Grandparenting Pay off for the Next Generations? Intergenerational Effects of Grandparental Care (2021)
Working Paper: Does Grandparenting Pay off for the Next Generations? Intergenerational Effects of Grandparental Care (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1152

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