Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, 1 Arts Link, 117570, Singapore.
Peking University HSBC Business School, RM 731 HSBC Business School Building, Xili, Shenzhen 518055, China.
Soc Sci Med. 2019 Nov;240:112547. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112547. Epub 2019 Sep 12.
Grandparents, especially grandmothers, are highly involved in childcare globally. There is a rising interest in studying the relationship between providing care and grandmothers' economic well-being in social science and health literature. However, little is known about how grandmothers' behavior responds to a government's family policy. This paper examines the effects of a large government-led formal childcare expansion on the well-being of working-age grandparents living with their adult children in China. We exploit the variation in program intensity across provinces and years and find that a higher coverage rate of center-based childcare increases the employment of grandmothers. By contrast, grandfathers' employment is not responsive. Further investigation reveals that the effect is stronger among the women who were richer, more educated, lived in urban areas, and paternal grandmothers. We find that the childcare expansion decreases grandmothers' chance of having chronic disease and depression.
祖父母，尤其是祖母，在全球范围内都非常参与照顾孙辈的工作。在社会科学和健康文献中，研究提供照顾与祖母经济福祉之间关系的兴趣日益浓厚。然而，对于祖母的行为如何响应政府的家庭政策，我们知之甚少。本文考察了政府主导的大规模正规儿童保育扩张对与成年子女同住的中国工作年龄祖父母福祉的影响。我们利用各省和年份之间的计划强度变化，发现中心为基础的儿童保育覆盖率的提高增加了祖母的就业。相比之下，祖父的就业没有反应。进一步的调查显示，这种效应在那些更富裕、受过更好教育、居住在城市地区和祖父的祖母中更强。我们发现，儿童保育扩张降低了祖母患慢性病和抑郁症的机会。
