Di Gessa Giorgio, Glaser Karen, Zaninotto Paola
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, London, WC1E 7HB UK.
Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King's College London, London, UK.
Eur J Ageing. 2022 Jan 21;19(3):763-774. doi: 10.1007/s10433-021-00675-x. eCollection 2022 Sep.
Grandparents play a vital role in providing childcare to families. Qualitative research and evidence from parents raise concerns that it is grandparents who are socio-economically disadvantaged who provide grandchild care more regularly, perform more intensive tasks, and care out of financial necessity. However, no European studies have investigated these issues at population level. This study is based on grandparents aged 50+ who looked after grandchildren. Data are from wave 8 of the nationally representative English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2016/2017). We exploit newly collected information on frequency of grandchild care, activities, and reasons for care. Using multinomial regressions, we first examined the extent to which grandparents' socio-economic characteristics (wealth and education) are associated with frequency of grandchild care. Second, using logistic regressions, we investigated whether wealth and education are associated with activities and reasons for grandchild care. Overall, grandparents from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to provide more regular childcare. Similarly, grandparents in the lowest wealth quartile were more involved in hands-on activities (cooking, taking/collecting grandchildren to/from school), whereas highly educated grandparents were more likely to help grandchildren with homework. Finally, better-off grandparents were more likely to look after grandchildren to help parents and provide emotional support and less likely to report difficulty in refusing to provide care. Our findings show that grandparental childcare varies by socio-economic status with more intensive childcare activities falling disproportionately on those with fewer resources, and this may act to exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities in later life.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10433-021-00675-x.
祖父母在为家庭提供儿童照料方面发挥着至关重要的作用。定性研究以及来自父母的证据引发了人们的担忧，即社会经济地位不利的祖父母更经常地提供孙辈照料，承担更繁重的任务，并且出于经济需要而提供照料。然而，尚无欧洲研究在人口层面调查这些问题。本研究基于年龄在50岁及以上且照顾孙辈的祖父母。数据来自具有全国代表性的英国老龄化纵向研究的第8波（2016/2017年）。我们利用新收集的关于孙辈照料频率、活动及照料原因的信息。通过多项回归分析，我们首先考察了祖父母的社会经济特征（财富和教育程度）与孙辈照料频率之间的关联程度。其次，通过逻辑回归分析，我们研究了财富和教育程度是否与孙辈照料的活动及原因相关。总体而言，社会经济背景不利的祖父母更有可能提供更经常的儿童照料。同样，处于最低财富四分位数的祖父母更多地参与实际活动（做饭、接送孙辈上学/放学），而受过高等教育的祖父母更有可能帮助孙辈做作业。最后，经济状况较好的祖父母更有可能为帮助父母而照顾孙辈并提供情感支持，且不太可能表示难以拒绝提供照料。我们的研究结果表明，祖父母的儿童照料因社会经济地位而异，更繁重的儿童照料活动不成比例地落在资源较少的人身上，这可能会加剧晚年现有的社会经济不平等。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s10433-021-00675-x获取的补充材料。
