Lakomý Martin, Kreidl Martin
Department of Sociology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
Eur J Ageing. 2015 Jul 8;12(4):321-331. doi: 10.1007/s10433-015-0349-9. eCollection 2015 Dec.
The impact of grandparents' employment on grandparental childcare has been examined repeatedly, but the findings have so far been inconsistent. We contend that these inconsistencies may have resulted from variations in model specification and crude measurement of employment status. Furthermore, we assert that earlier research overlooked gender differences in the ability to combine paid employment and caregiving as well as variations between maternal and paternal grandparents. We also question the causal interpretation of earlier findings that were based on cross-sectional data. We revisit the issue of the impact of the intensity of employment and analyze SHARE data from 19 countries. We find a significant positive association between part-time employment (as compared to full-time employment) and the frequency of grandparental childcare in a cross-sectional sample, but only among paternal grandmothers. Capitalizing on the panel component of SHARE, we use a within-person estimator to show that this association is unlikely to reflect a causal effect of the intensity of labor market attachment on the frequency of the care of grandchildren, but more probably results from omitted variable bias. We argue that grandparents most likely to provide (intensive) childcare are also most likely to adjust their employment in anticipation of caregiving. The paper documents the usefulness of role strain theory among grandparents and highlights that part-time jobs may reduce role conflict and may thus make grandparenting a more easily manageable experience.
祖父母就业对其育儿行为的影响已被反复研究，但迄今为止，研究结果并不一致。我们认为，这些不一致可能是由于模型设定的差异以及就业状况的粗略衡量所致。此外，我们断言，早期研究忽视了有偿就业与照顾孩子能力方面的性别差异，以及外祖父祖母和外祖母祖母之间的差异。我们还对基于横截面数据的早期研究结果的因果解释提出质疑。我们重新审视就业强度的影响问题，并分析了来自19个国家的SHARE数据。我们发现，在横截面样本中，兼职工作（与全职工作相比）与祖父母育儿频率之间存在显著的正相关，但仅在外祖母祖母中存在这种情况。利用SHARE的面板数据，我们使用个体内部估计器表明，这种关联不太可能反映劳动力市场依附强度对照顾孙辈频率的因果效应，而更可能是由遗漏变量偏差导致的。我们认为，最有可能提供（高强度）育儿服务的祖父母也最有可能在预期要照顾孙辈时调整自己的就业。本文证明了角色压力理论在祖父母中的有用性，并强调兼职工作可能会减少角色冲突，从而使祖父母育儿成为一种更容易应对的经历。
