Grandparenting and well-being of the elderly in China

Hao Wang, Jan Fidrmuc and Qi Luo

No 18/2020, BOFIT Discussion Papers from Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT)

Abstract: Grandparenting duties can affect the well-being of the elderly both positively and negatively. This paper disentangles the interactions between grandparenting, quality of life, and life satisfaction in China. Using a panel dataset of 3,205 respondents in three waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2011, 2013, and 2015, we find that grandparents who look after grandchildren are less at risk of depression, receive more financial and in-kind transfers from their children, and report greater life satisfaction than grandparents who do not look after grandchildren. These benefits vary across gender and rural-urban status, however. The positive effect of grandparenting is driven mainly by the direct effect with negligible mediating effect attributable to better quality of life.

Keywords: grandparenting; quality of life; life satisfaction; panel data analysis; CHARLS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/240369/1/dp2018.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Grandparenting and Well-Being of the Elderly in China (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2020_018

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