Barman Anukul, Adhikary Mihir, Sarode Sunil
Department of Population and Development, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India.
Department of Public Health and Mortality Studies, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, India.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Jul 4;25(1):2386. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23524-3.
In the Indian socio-cultural context, the involvement of older adults in grandchild care is a normative expectation and a common household practice. Despite its prevalence, limited empirical evidence exists on how such caregiving responsibilities affect the psychological well-being and life satisfaction of older individuals. This study addresses this gap by examining the association between grandchild caregiving and life satisfaction among older adults in India.
This study draws upon nationally representative data from Wave 1 (2017-2018) of the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), comprising 25,650 individuals aged 60 to 80 years. To examine the association between grandchild caregiving and life satisfaction among older adults, we employed Ordered Logistic Regression models to account for the ordinal nature of the outcome variable. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was also applied to address potential selection bias and ensure comparability between caregivers and non-caregivers based on observed covariates.
The analysis revealed a statistically significant positive association between grandchild caregiving and life satisfaction among older adults. Specifically, individuals engaged in grandchild care exhibited higher odds of reporting greater life satisfaction (OR = 1.16; 95% CI: 1.10-1.23). Findings from the PSM analysis further supported this relationship, with an average treatment effect (ATE) of 0.057, indicating that caregiving for grandchildren contributes meaningfully to enhanced life satisfaction in later life.
These findings underscore the positive role of grandchild caregiving in enhancing life satisfaction among older adults in India. Promoting supportive intergenerational relationships may therefore serve as an important strategy for improving psychological well-being in later life.
在印度的社会文化背景下，老年人参与孙辈照料是一种规范性期望和常见的家庭行为。尽管这种现象很普遍，但关于这种照料责任如何影响老年人的心理健康和生活满意度的实证证据有限。本研究通过考察印度老年人中孙辈照料与生活满意度之间的关联来填补这一空白。
本研究利用了印度纵向老龄化研究（LASI）第一波（2017 - 2018年）具有全国代表性的数据，样本包括25650名年龄在60至80岁之间的个体。为了考察老年人中孙辈照料与生活满意度之间的关联，我们采用有序逻辑回归模型来考虑结果变量的有序性质。还应用了倾向得分匹配（PSM）来解决潜在的选择偏差，并确保基于观察到的协变量，照料者和非照料者之间具有可比性。
分析显示，老年人中孙辈照料与生活满意度之间存在统计学上显著的正相关。具体而言，参与孙辈照料的个体报告更高生活满意度的几率更高（OR = 1.16；95%置信区间：1.10 - 1.23）。PSM分析的结果进一步支持了这种关系，平均治疗效果（ATE）为0.057，表明照料孙辈对晚年生活满意度的提高有显著贡献。
这些发现强调了孙辈照料在提高印度老年人生活满意度方面的积极作用。因此，促进支持性的代际关系可能是改善晚年心理健康的一项重要策略。
