This resulted in a few workshops, which later led to a series of short papers and, ultimately, to the production of the e-book Loneliness and social exclusion among older Europeans before and during the COVID-19 pandemic that is now available on the N-IUSSP website. Here is an excerpt from Bruno Arpino, Giuseppe Gabrielli and Heidrun Mollenkopf’s introduction.

The demographic changes of the past and coming years will profoundly modify the population structure in Europe. These transformations are associated with changes in the distribution of resources and opportunities across Europe and beyond – changes that require adjustments in all areas of life, both at individual level and across society as a whole. Among these changes, population ageing is a long-term trend, which began several decades ago in Europe. Increased life expectancy is a triumph for humanity but, coupled with fertility reduction and postponement, it causes population ageing.

Social isolation and feelings of loneliness among older people are among the challenges posed by population ageing and shrinking family networks. Isolation and loneliness have negative consequences on individuals that may result in poor physical health, unhealthy behaviours, poor wellbeing and, ultimately, depression.

Loneliness also has an economic cost for individuals and society; it reduces interpersonal interactions, and thus social capital, and adversely affects physical and mental health.  Research has estimated that the annual cost of loneliness is about 1,000 euros per capita. Individuals who feel lonely also tend to use healthcare services more than others, with negative consequences on public health expenditures.

Loneliness and social isolation among older adults were already important research and policy topics before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the spread of COVID-19 and the social distancing measures to limit transmission of the virus exacerbated pre-pandemic vulnerabilities linked to isolation and loneliness in ageing societies.

Isolation, loneliness, and the COVID-19 pandemic

In the decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars and public health officials became increasingly concerned about the growing risks of loneliness driven by societal shifts such as fertility decline, the increase in one-person households and other factors, especially in the United States and Europe.

After the outbreak of the pandemic, physical distancing was imposed or encouraged at national, regional, and local levels, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. People were asked to avoid public social spaces and minimize physical contact with others. Measures also included stay-at-home orders, and full physical isolation of high-risk individuals, such as older adults with pre-existing conditions. While these mitigation measures were effective in slowing the spread of COVID-19 and reducing mortality, they may have increased isolation among older adults, possibly exacerbating the “loneliness pandemic” and the risk factors for loneliness.

Studies have suggested that older adults were more resilient to loneliness than younger adults during COVID-19. Thus, increased physical isolation due to the anti-COVID restrictions does not seem, on the whole, to have exacerbated feelings of loneliness among older adults. This finding may reflect a combination of factors, including lowered expectations for social interaction during the pandemic or increased contact at a distance. 

Although possibly more resilient than younger adults, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, older adults across Europe experienced increases in loneliness during COVID-19. Existing evidence offers mixed results. In addition, although some studies showed unchanged feelings of loneliness among older adults overall, relevant heterogeneities may exist. Along this line, Arpino et al. (2022) show that individuals who lack certain close family ties (e.g., unpartnered people) have been at higher risk of reporting increased feelings of loneliness since the onset of the pandemic. This suggests that older people who lacked emotional and practical support might have been particularly exposed to its direct and indirect consequences. Van Tilburg (2022) shows that loneliness, and particularly emotional loneliness, increased between 2019 and 2020, although having a partner before the pandemic provided some protection. 

Given that informal caregiving is mostly provided by close family members, childless and unpartnered individuals were, in principle, those at highest risk of experiencing unmet care needs during the pandemic. In fact, research has shown that family caregiving continued during the pandemic, in some cases replacing formal care services to avoid possible contagion by care professionals. Studies have also reported higher anxiety and depression among family caregivers during the pandemic.

The increased need of care and the heavier burden placed on family caregivers call for new policy and practice solutions. Older people in residential care are at a particularly high risk of isolation, loneliness and reduced care. COVID‑19 has pointed up an urgent need for higher standards of care in nursing homes in Europe, and for the development of community-based alternatives and services to support persons with care needs and families with care responsibilities.

These alternatives and services could be inspired by the principles outlined in a UN (2020) policy brief launched in the early phases of the pandemic. The development of good quality, affordable, available, and accessible community-based services being paramount for meaningful inclusion in the community, these services should be developed in collaboration with all stakeholders, from users to practitioners, including persons with care needs and their families. In parallel, broader-scope interventions to reduce isolation and loneliness among the general population can, and need to be, implemented, e.g. by improving public transport and through laws and policies to address ageism, inequality and the digital divide (WHO 2021).

References

Arpino B., Mair C. Quashie N., and Antczak R.  (2022) Loneliness Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are Unpartnered and Childless Older Adults at Higher Risk? European Journal of Ageing. 19, 1327–1338. 

United Nations (UN) (2020) The Impact of COVID-19 on older persons.

Van Tilburg, T. G. (2022). Emotional, social, and existential loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Prevalence and risk factors among Dutch older adults. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 77(7), e179-e184.

World Health Organization (WHO) (2021). Social isolation and loneliness among older people: advocacy brief. WHO: Geneva.

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Research prior to the COVID-19 outbreak identified being unpartnered or childless as risk factors for loneliness among older adults (Dahlberg et al. 2022; Fokkema et al. 2012). The COVID-19 pandemic might have affected loneliness among kinless older adults differently from the rest of the older population. With the aim of fighting the spread of the virus, several mitigation policies and recommendations were implemented at national, regional, and local levels. These mitigation strategies, which were especially stringent during the first phases of the pandemic and varied across countries, included avoidance of public social spaces, minimizing physical contact with others, “stay-at-home” orders, and full physical isolation, especially for older adults, and those with health issues in particular.

Kinlessness, loneliness and the COVID-19 pandemic

The “physical distancing” imposed by these strategies also produced “social distancing”, i.e. reduced social contacts, at least face-to-face (Arpino et al. 2021). Thus, anti-COVID policies may have exacerbated risks of loneliness, among older adults especially (Dahlberg 2021; van Tilburg et al. 2021). These consequences may have been more serious for those lacking close kin, such as unpartnered or childless older adults. For example, the types of contacts that are more common in networks of kinless older adults, such as extended family and non-family ties, may have been more vulnerable to disruption during the pandemic compared to partner and child ties. 

On the other hand, linkages between parenthood, partnership, and loneliness are complex and may have been particularly nuanced during the pandemic. For example, older parents who are accustomed to frequent in-person contact with their children may have experienced an uptick in loneliness when child contact was disrupted. Childless older adults, on the other hand, might be more accustomed to less contact and may therefore have experienced less disruption. 

Loneliness before and during the pandemic in Europe

In a recent study (Arpino et al. 2022), we examined whether unpartnered and childless older adults (aged 50 years and over) were more likely to report loneliness compared to those with these family ties, and whether the gap in loneliness between those with and without these ties increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analyses are based on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). We used pre-COVID data from wave 8, which started in October 2019 but was suspended in all countries in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We also used data from the SHARE Corona Survey 1 (SCS1) implemented between June and August 2020 to collect information on individuals’ behaviours and conditions during the pandemic.

Our analyses show that before the pandemic, when asked “Have you felt lonely recently?”, unpartnered and childless older adults were more likely to report loneliness compared to those with these family ties (Table 1, M1a-M2a). This remained true even when both factors were considered together, although the effect of childlessness on loneliness was smaller (Table 1, M3a). Older adults lacking one tie only (unpartnered parents or partnered childless) were at greater risk of loneliness compared to those who had both ties (Table 1, M4a).

During the pandemic, the associations between family ties and loneliness remained stable, with no notable change in the effects of being childless or unpartnered on loneliness before versus during the pandemic (Table 1, M1b-M3b). However, in contrast to the pre-COVID period, considering the combination of being childless and unpartnered made no difference (Table 1, M4b): In fact, in this case, the average marginal effect (AME) of parenthood is very similar for partnered and unpartnered individuals; similarly, the AME of partnership does not change significantly by parenthood. As a result, the effects of being unpartnered and childless on loneliness became more independent during the pandemic.

Feeling more lonely during the pandemic

Our second outcome examines whether people reported feeling more lonely during the pandemic. We found that unpartnered individuals were more likely to report feeling lonelier during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to those in a partnership. Childless individuals, on the other hand, were not at higher risk of reporting feeling lonelier compared to parents (Table 1, M1c-M3c). The effect of being unpartnered was slightly stronger among childless individuals, but the difference in the impact of being unpartnered on loneliness between childless and parent individuals was not statistically significant (Table 1, M4c).

Changes and stability in feeling lonely compared to before the pandemic

Our third outcome was obtained by combining the answers to the question “Have you felt lonely recently?” asked of respondents who participated in both the regular SHARE wave 8 and the SCS1. This analysis (not presented in Table 1) highlights that unpartnered individuals were more likely to “have become lonely” during the pandemic, while childless and unpartnered individuals were less likely to “exit” loneliness if they felt lonely before the pandemic.

Conclusions

We found that both before and during the pandemic, lacking close kin (especially a partner) was associated with a higher risk of feeling lonely among older Europeans. However, “kinless” older adults (unpartnered and childless) were not lonelier than those who lacked only one of these ties. This may signal that kinless individuals have developed a range of resources and different coping strategies to manage the lack of close kinship ties, such as a rich network of friends (Mair, 2019).

While “physical distancing,” “lockdown,” and “stay-at-home” mitigation measures provided protection from COVID-19, the restrictions on face-to-face interactions and public spaces for socializing also removed key sources of social integration for those who were already more likely to spend time alone (e.g., the unpartnered). As the population of unpartnered and childless older adults grows globally, future public health strategies should seek a balanced mitigation approach that also considers the consequences of isolation, particularly for those who are already at higher risk for loneliness.

References

Arpino, B., Pasqualini, M., and Bordone, V. (2021) Physically distant but socially close? Changes in non-physical intergenerational contacts at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among older people in France, Italy and Spain. European Journal of Ageing, 18, 185–194.

Arpino B., Mair C. Quashie N., and Antczak R. (2022) Loneliness Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Are Unpartnered and Childless Older Adults at Higher Risk? European Journal of Ageing. 19, 1327–1338.

Dahlberg L (2021) Loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aging & Mental Health, 25(7): 1161–1164.

Dahlberg L, McKee KJ, Frank A, Naseer M (2022) A systematic review of longitudinal risk factors for loneliness in older adults. Aging & Mental Health, 26(2): 225–249.

Fokkema, T., De Jong Gierveld, J., & Dykstra, P.A. (2012). Cross-national differences in older adult loneliness. The Journal of Psychology, 146(1-2), 201-228.

Mair, Christine A. (2019). “Alternatives to Aging Alone?: ‘Kinlessness’ and the Importance of Friends across European Contexts.” Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 74(8):1416-1428.

Van Tilburg, T.G., Steinmetz, S., Stolte, E., van der Roest, H., & de Vries, D.H. (2020). Loneliness and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Study Among Dutch Older Adults. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 76(7), e249-e255

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Background

Children are the primary source of support for a majority of aging individuals across the globe. Thus, childless older adults are often assumed to have higher risks of poor health compared to parents due to lower social support, weakened sense of meaning, and greater social isolation (Hansen 2012). Children may, however, also be a source of social and/or economic strain at earlier life stages (Umberson, Pudrovska, & Reczek, 2010), which may contribute to health vulnerability at older ages. Research also shows that the health of older adults, with or without children, depends on the health dimension examined (Keenan & Grundy, 2019).

The health gap between parents and non-parents in later life depends also on several contextual factors including cultural norms about the meaning of family and children in the lives of older adults, the availability of public support for them, and income inequality, which shapes older adults’ access to quality health care (Albertini & Mencarini, 2014; Dickman, Himmelstein, & Woolhandler, 2017; Hansen, 2012).

However, prior cross-national research on the health of older adults with and without children has focused on comparisons within one global region or on small samples of countries from different global regions; it has examined associations for one or few health outcomes, and has applied different conceptualizations of childlessness. This makes it difficult to determine whether childless older adults are indeed at risk of poorer health than parents across different social contexts.

In a recent study, using harmonized cross-sectional data from the Health Retirement Study (HRS) global family of aging surveys provided by the Gateway to Global Aging repository (Lee, 2015), we examined the association between childlessness and health among adults aged 50 years and older (Quashie et al., 2019). We used data for comparable years (2011-2013) from four global regions: Europe (SHARE), North America (HRS), Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, MHAS), and Asia (China, CHARLS), 20 countries overall. In our study, older adults with no living children at the time of the survey were compared with older parents with one or more living children including biological, step or adopted children.

We adopted a multidimensional approach to health by examining physical, functional, and mental health:

• self-rated health (poor versus good),
• difficulties with activities of daily living (ADL, at least one among bathing, dressing and eating),
• difficulties with instrumental activities of daily living (IADL, at least one among managing money, taking medications, shopping, preparing meals),
• doctor diagnosed chronic conditions (at least one among high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, stroke, lung disease, and heart disease), and
• depression (self-reported feelings of depression in the week prior to the interview).

For each health outcome, responses were coded to indicate poor, as opposed to good, health.

To compare the strength of the association between childlessness and health across countries, we computed the average marginal effect of childlessness, which can be interpreted as the percentage point difference between childless older adults and parents in the probability of experiencing a given “bad” health outcome.

Cross-national variation in childless older adults.

The prevalence of childlessness among older adults varies widely across the 20 countries in our study (Figure 1). China shows the lowest percentage of childless older adults (2%) followed by Mexico (4.1%). Within Europe, prevalence also varies widely, with the lowest in Czechia (4.4%) and Poland (4.8%), and the highest in Switzerland (16.3%). In other European countries, the prevalence ranges between 6% and 12%.

Are childless older adults at higher risk of poor health than parents?

Overall, childlessness was not significantly associated with older adults’ health, and this is probably our most important conclusion. When significant associations were observed, net of controls, there was no consistent relationship between childlessness and poor health across countries and health outcomes (Figure 2). In four countries (Czechia, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands), childlessness was associated with worse health for one or more outcomes. In five countries, (Mexico, Hungary, United States, Germany, and Belgium), childlessness was associated with better health. Childless older adults in Hungary and Mexico reported better health than parents across all indicators (except IADL in Hungary).

We found marked regional variations within Europe. For instance, Italy was the only Southern European country where childlessness was associated with health, but in an ambiguous way, as childless older adults are more likely to report poor overall self-rated health but less likely to report having a chronic condition. Among Eastern European countries, Hungary was the only country where childlessness was associated with health advantages; the opposite was found in Poland and Czechia.

Finally, childless older adults’ risk of poor health varies across health outcomes. Childlessness was associated with lower risk of chronic conditions in some countries (Italy, Germany, United States, Hungary and Mexico) but higher risk of having difficulty with at least one IADL in a few countries (Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands). In several countries, mixed patterns emerged for self-rated health, depression, and difficulty with at least one ADL.

Implications

Declining fertility and increasing life expectancy across the globe suggest that many people will age without children, one of the most traditional sources of support in later life, which may lead to health vulnerabilities. Our results, however, suggest that childless older adults are not an overall “at risk” segment of the older adult population in an international perspective: in some contexts, they even enjoy better health. Current and future social policies to protect the health of older adults should pay closer attention to individuals’ family resources. In some countries (e.g. Mexico and Hungary), social policies should also focus on protecting the health of older parents. In others (e.g. Czechia), policies need to address the multidimensional health vulnerability (e.g. mental and functional health) of childless older adults.

References

Albertini, M., & Mencarini, L. (2014). Childlessness and support networks in later life: New pressures on familistic welfare states? Journal of Family Issues, 35, 331–357. doi:10.1177/0192513X12462537

Dickman, S. L., Himmelstein, D. U., & Woolhandler, S. (2017). Inequality and the health-care system in the USA. Lancet (London, England), 389, 1431–1441. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30398-7

Hansen, T. 2012. Parenthood and happiness: A review of folk theories versus empirical evidence. Social Indicators Research, 108, 29–64. doi:10.1007/s11205-011-9865-y

Keenan, K., & Grundy, E. (2019). Fertility history and physical and mental health changes in European older adults. European Journal of Population, 35, 459–485. doi:10.1007/s10680-018-9489-x

Lee, J. 2015. Study descriptions: Health and retirement studies around the World. University of Southern California.

Quashie, N. T., Arpino, B., Antczak, R., & Mair, C. A. (2019). Childlessness and Health Among Older Adults: Variation Across Five Outcomes and 20 Countries. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbz153

Umberson, D., Pudrovska, T., & Reczek, C. (2010). Parenthood, childlessness, and well-being: A life course perspective. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 72, 612–629. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00721.x

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Intergenerational support is a major theme in family science. One of the most interesting topics is whether the exchange of support between generations within a family is based on reciprocity. Although the question has been long debated in theory, empirical analyses using panel data are rather scarce. Hence, a question that has been largely unanswered is whether parents’ investments in their children pay off later: do parents who give more also receive more from the children, at some later stage? To answer this question, in a recent study we utilized panel data from the German Family Panel (pairfam) and examined whether support previously received from parents was associated with support provided to parents in later years (Hämäläinen et al. 2020)

Concept of reciprocity

Timing of actions is the core of reciprocity: individuals who receive help at a given point in time are assumed to reciprocate this help later – although the time frame may vary from short- to a very long-term (e.g., Silverstein et al. 2002). In addition to the possible time lag, reciprocity may involve different forms of support. For instance, support among family members typically takes multiple forms, such as financial aid, personal care, practical help and emotional support. It has also been shown that within families, financial aid flows mostly downwards (from the old to the young generations) while instrumental support, such as help with household tasks, flows more often upwards (e.g., Hämäläinen & Tanskanen, 2019). Hence, members may exchange one form of support for another rather than making a same-for-same exchange. For instance, adult children may repay financial aid from parents by providing instrumental support.

Does supporting a child increase the help parents receive later?

In our study (Hämäläinen et al. 2020), we examined reciprocity of intergenerational support from the viewpoint of adult children using panel data from Germany collected about every two years between 2009 and 2016. During the data collection respondents were 25–45 years old and their parents were around 60 on average, ranging from mid-40s to mid-90s. The investigation considered all the forms of exchanges between parents and children listed above, namely emotional support, practical help, financial aid and personal care. The frequency of support was measured by asking respondents to report how often they had received each form of help during the year preceding the interview (never, seldom, sometimes, often, very often).

As intergenerational relations and support patterns differ according to the sex of parents and children (e.g., Tanskanen & Danielsbcaka, 2019), we explored reciprocity separately in different sex constellations of parent-child relations:

• mother–daughter
• mother–son
• father–daughter
• father–son

The study utilized multilevel linear regression models and investigated within-person effects, that is, it focused on individuals’ variation over time and explored whether a change in the frequency of support received from a parent was associated with subsequent provision of support to that same parent. If reciprocity were an influencing factor in intergenerational support, an increase in the frequency of support received should be positively associated with the frequency of support provided subsequently.

The study analysed associations between all the above-mentioned forms of support within every parent-child dyad. Table 1 presents a summary of our results. We estimated 64 models, but we detected only three cases of a positive association indicating reciprocal exchange of support: sons who reported an increase in the frequency of emotional support from at least one of their parents more often provided financial transfers to that parent later, and daughters who reported an increase in the frequency of practical help from their father more often provided financial support to him later. We also found seven significant negative associations where an increase in the frequency of help received led to support less frequently offered later. However, the magnitude of all of the statistically significant associations is very small, and their substantive significance is limited, especially considering the relatively large number of regressions (64) that we examined.

No strong evidence for intergenerational reciprocity

Overall, our study did not disclose any notable evidence for a short-term reciprocity of intergenerational support between adult children (aged 25 to 45 years) and their parents: an increase in support received from parents did not systematically translate into more frequent support offered to parents later. Therefore, our results suggest that investing in children does not “pay off” in the relatively short period of time considered in the study. However, this does not necessarily mean that reciprocity is absent in the longer run. For instance, help received from parents may be reciprocated by adult children at some later stages of their lives, when parents get older and more “needy”.

Families differ also with regard to their level and intensity of intergenerational support and a lack of reciprocity as such does not mean that support is lacking. For instance, families with a high quality of intergenerational relationships and strong commitment to intergenerational help may have a solid support network even in the absence of genuine reciprocity effects, that is, of a causal impact of previously received help on help provided in the future. Although the net flow of intergenerational support goes from older to younger family generations, intergenerational relationships usually include downward and upward flows of support (e.g., Hämäläinen & Tanskanen, 2019). Intergenerational support may not be based on reciprocity, but adult children can nevertheless be an important source of at least potential help for their ageing parents and therefore contribute significantly to their well-being.

References

Hämäläinen, H. & Tanskanen, A.O. (2019). ‘Sandwich generation’: Generational transfers towards adult children and elderly parents. Journal of Family Studies, doi: 10.1080/13229400.2019.1586562

Hämäläinen, H., Tanskanen, A. O., Danielsbacka, M. & Arpino, B. (2020). Short-term reciprocity between adult children and parents: A within-person investigation of longitudinal data. Advances in Life Course Research, 44, doi: 10.1016/j.alcr.2020.100337

Silverstein, M., Conroy, S. J., Wang, H., Giarrusso, R. & Bengtson, V. L. (2002). Reciprocity in parent-child relations over the adult life course. Journal of Gerontology, 57B, 3–13.

Tanskanen, A. O. & Danielsbacka, M. (2019). Intergenerational Family Relations. An Evolutionary Social Science Approach. London & New York: Routledge.

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In many countries, a large proportion of grandparents, especially grandmothers, provide care to their grandchildren (Glaser et al., 2013) and in recent years this has prompted numerous studies on the consequences of caregiving on grandparents’ physical and mental health. However, the consequences of combining grandparental childcare with other caregiving roles have rarely been examined, despite the growing numbers of individuals concerned. This is the topic of a recent article (Arpino & Gómez-León, 2019) in which, using a longitudinal perspective, we examine the effect on depression of combining care to grandchildren with other types of caregiving roles for women and men aged 50-84. Given that depression is estimated to be the fourth leading component of the global burden of disease (Ustün et al. 2004), it is important to understand the possible consequences of caregiving on depression.

Caregiving and health

From a theoretical point of view, the provision of grandchild care may have both positive and negative effects on grandparents’ health and wellbeing. On the one hand, it can be viewed as a way for older people to contribute to society and may also improve their well-being by giving them increased purpose in life and more opportunities for physical and mental exercise. Several studies have found evidence of positive effects of grandchild care on health (Di Gessa et al. 2016; Arpino and Bordone 2014).

On the other hand, it may be argued that as people have limited time, energy, and resources to fulfil different roles, some older individuals may find it difficult to take on the additional role of caregiver for grandchildren. Besides, grandparents may be overburdened by the simultaneous demands of caring for their grandchildren and for others, often their partner or their parents (Grundy and Henretta, 2006). Are they being stretched to breaking point?

Data and methods

Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we examined longitudinally the effect on depression of combining grandchild care with other care activities separately for grandmothers and grandfathers aged 50-84. We distinguished between three types of non-grandchild care (to someone living in the household; to someone outside the household; to a sick or disabled person). The final sample used in our analyses was composed of 5,012 men and 6,784 women. Depressive symptoms are measured in SHARE using the EURO-D scale, ranging from 0 to 12 symptoms. In line with previous studies, we categorized depression as a dichotomous variable characterizing individuals who self-report four or more depressive symptoms.

We used the first two waves of SHARE (2004 and 2006) and estimated logistic regressions for the probability of being depressed at wave 2 as a function of caregiving at wave 1, while also accounting for initial depression status and other socio-economic and demographic factors measured at wave 1.

Results

Figure 1 summarizes the main results of our analyses. Predicted probabilities of being depressed are reported separately by gender for four groups of older adults: those who do not provide care; those who only provide care to grandchildren; those who provide another type of care only; those who provide both grandchild care and another type of care. For each gender, we estimated three models in which the other type of care refers, in turn, to someone inside the household; someone outside the household; a sick or disabled individual.

The left-hand side of the graph in Figure 1 shows that grandmothers who only provide care to their grandchildren are about 5 percentage points less likely to be depressed than grandmothers not involved in caregiving (about 24% vs 29%). This indicates that grandchild care protects from depression. If grandmothers only provide other types of care, they have depression risk similar to that of non-caregivers. The only exception is observed when care to a co-resident is considered. In this case, caregiving is associated with a higher probability of depression than for non-caregivers (34% vs 29%) because this type of care, usually given to the partner or a parent, is likely to be intensive and demanding.

When comparing grandmothers providing grandchild care with those who also care for others, an interesting pattern emerges. The risk of depression is not increased by the additional caregiving role, with the exception, again, of caregiving to a co-resident. Grandmothers who provide care to both grandchildren and other co-residents show a probability of depression of about 32%, similar to the probability for grandmothers only caring for a co-resident (34%) and higher than the risk when grandchild care is the only caregiving activity (24%). These results suggest that the protective role of grandchild care is substantially diminished for grandmothers who also care for another person living in the same household.

For men (right-hand side graph in Figure 1), we find no evidence of a protective role of grandchild care: grandfathers who provide other types of care have a higher depression risk than non-caregivers. However, as we discuss more in detail in the original paper, the only statistically significant difference was found in the comparison between grandparents who only care for someone inside the household and non-caregivers (the predicted probabilities of depression were about 19% and 14%, respectively).

Discussion

Our findings reveal the extent to which grandchild care remains a protective factor for grandparents’ mental health when they also take on another care role. We found that only a small proportion of grandparents combine grandchild care with other caregiving roles. However, demand for simultaneous provision of care to different people and especially different generations in the family constellation is likely to grow in the future (Wiemers and Bianchi, 2015). Thus, our findings have important implications for designing policies to support individuals who face different informal care demands, and especially those with a multiple care burden. The differing effects found for different types of care suggests that policies aimed at supporting caregivers should take into account the heterogeneous nature of caregiving. A policy designed for one type of caregiver (e.g., those who provide care to a disabled person) may not be appropriate for others (e.g., grandparental childcare). We found that women who provide childcare and other intensive types of care may lose the positive effects of grandchild care on their wellbeing. This suggests that multiple intensive care roles may be too burdensome and stressful, and that policy on informal caregiving should devote special attention to these cases.

The original study mentioned in this article was part of the multi-country project “Care, Retirement & Wellbeing of Older People Across Different Welfare Regimes ” (CREW). The authors acknowledge funding from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (PCIN-2016-005) within the second Joint Programming Initiative “More Years Better Lives”.

References

Arpino, B. & Bordone, V. (2014). Does Grandparenting Pay Off? The Effect of Childcare on Grandparents´ Cognitive Functioning. Journal of Marriage and Family, 76, 337–351.

Arpino B. and Gómez-León, M. (2019) Consequences on depression of combining grandparental childcare with other caregiving roles. Aging & Mental Health, Doi: 10.1080/13607863.2019.1584788, published on-line: 14 March 2019.

Di Gessa, G., Glaser, K., & Tinker, A. (2016). The Health Impact of Intensive and Nonintensive Grandchild Care in Europe: New Evidence From SHARE. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 71(5), 867–879.

Glaser, K., Price, D., Di Gessa, G., Ribe E., Stuchbury R. & Tinker A. (2013). Grandparenting in Europe: family policy and grandparents’ role in providing childcare. London: Grandparent plus.

Grundy, E., & Henretta, J.C. (2006). Between elderly parents and adult children: a new look at the intergenerational care provided by the ‘sandwich generation’. Ageing & Society, 26(5), 707–722.

Ustün, T. B., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L., Chatterji, S., Mathers, C. & Murray, J. L. (2004). Global burden of depressive disorders in the year 2000. British Journal of Psychiatry, 184, pp. 386-392.

Wiemers, E.E., & Bianchi, S.M. (2015). Competing Demands from Aging Parents and Adult Children in Two Cohorts of American Women. Population and Development Review, 41(1), 127-146.

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Female breadwinners across Europe

Results from a recent study (Vitali and Arpino 2016) shed light on the current geography of female breadwinning in Europe. Analyses of European Social Survey data for 2010/2011 show that female-breadwinner couples are especially widespread in Southern and Eastern-European countries and in Ireland (Figure 1). The Spanish regions top the ranking: results from statistical analyses predict that in about one in four couples in the regions of Canarias, Andalucía, Comunidad Valenciana, Illes Balears, Murcia and Extremadura the woman contributes all, or the largest share, of the household income. This proportion falls to about one in ten couples in regions of continental Europe and Norway. The prevalence of female-breadwinner families varies not only across European countries, but also across regions within countries. For example, Germany shows a clear East-West divide, with female-breadwinner families highly prevalent in the East and much less so in the West.

The contextual correlates of female breadwinners

How do we explain the observed differences across European countries and regions? Female-breadwinner couples, the study finds, are especially widespread in the regions where male unemployment is also high, such as Southern and Eastern Europe and Ireland.

In other words, the observed pattern of female-breadwinner families is the result of structural barriers that constrain women’s and men’s preferences concerning their labour market participation and earnings. During the economic crisis, many European countries witnessed a decline in real earnings and increased unemployment rates, especially for men. Men, on average, were more exposed to unemployment than women, due to the gendered distribution across different industries that were unevenly affected by the crisis. So as an increasing share of men found themselves unemployed or underemployed, an increasing share of women became the sole or the main provider of the income necessary to sustain their family.

Equal-income couples across Europe

The geography of equal-income couples across European regions looks quite different from that of female-breadwinner couples (Figure 2). The proportion of equal-income couples is especially high in the Scandinavian countries, Ireland, Estonia, East Germany, and parts of Spain, France, and the UK. Leading the ranking, with equal-income couples representing about one in three of all couples, are the French regions of Limousin and Picardie, the German region of Bremen and the Spanish regions of Canarias, Murcia, Madrid, Asturias, and Castilla y Leon. By contrast, the prevalence of equal-income couples is low in Eastern Europe, Greece, Cyprus, and Israel.

Unlike the case of female-breadwinner couples, male unemployment is only marginally correlated with the variation in equal-income couples across Europe. Here, what matters is the diffusion of gender egalitarian attitudes. In other words, equal-income couples are more prevalent in regions where gender egalitarian attitudes are more widespread.

Concluding remarks

In the aftermath of the economic crisis, female breadwinners do not appear to be high-earning career-oriented woman. On the contrary, they are likely to be the main income provider of households experiencing economic difficulties. The female breadwinner arrangement is related to men’s precarious labour market situation and is not the product of a genuine choice among couples where the woman is better educated than her partner and hence has a higher earning potential (Esteve et al. 2016; Drago et al. 2012).

References

Drago, R., Black, D. and Wooden, M. (2005). Female breadwinner families. Their existence, persistence and sources. Journal of Sociology, 41(4): 343–362.

Esteve, A., Schwartz, C., Van Bavel, J., Klesment, M., and Garcia, J. (2016). The End of Hypergamy: Global Trends and Implications. Population and Development Review, 42(4).

Vitali, A. and Arpino, B. (2016). Who brings home the bacon? The influence of context on partners’ contributions to the household income. Demographic Research, 35: 1213–1244.

Vitali, A. and Mendola, D. (2014). Women as main earners in Europe. CPC Working Paper 56, ESRC Centre for Population Change, UK.

Footnote

¹ We use the term ‘female breadwinners’ to identify families where the woman is the sole income provider as well as those where both partners are income providers but the woman contributes the largest share of household income.

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Subjective age: what is it?

In this context, self-assessments of age may capture aspects of personal well-being that escape traditional measures of health and may be more socially and psychologically meaningful than chronological age. Subjective age, i.e., how old a person feels, reflects personal evaluation of age, accounting for factors such as chronological age, role involvement and health, as well as awareness of societal age norms.

Research has shown that older people not only would like to be younger, but they also tend to feel younger than their chronological age. Determining which factors influence age perception may further our understanding of the quality of life and the mental health of the adult population.

In a recent publication (Bordone & Arpino, 2016), we used data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) conducted in the United States in 2008 to investigate the relationship between subjective age and grandparenthood. With increasing longevity and the longer period of overlap between grandparents’ lives and those of their grandchildren, the importance of the grandparents’ role has been acknowledged within the “successful ageing” framework. But grandparenthood is also a powerful reminder of a person’s ageing.

Therefore, having grandchildren might either raise or lower subjective age in relation to chronological age. While grandchildren may play the role of a premature marker of old age at an early stage of older adulthood, older grandparents tend to have a closer relationship with their grandchildren, and derive more pleasure from the time spent caring for them. They may feel younger as a result.

Among the eligible HRS respondents, we selected those aged 50 to 85 years, not living in a nursing home, and with at least one child. We excluded permanently sick or disabled respondents because these conditions have too strong an influence on subjective age and the likelihood of providing childcare.

Grandparenting pays off (at the right moment)

The results of a series of linear regression models show a magnifying effect of being a grandparent on subjective age for the youngest age groups. In particular, grandchildless men aged 50-66 and grandchildless women aged 50-64 feel about 2 years younger than their counterparts who have grandchildren, all other things being equal. Conversely, a reversed association holds for women aged 73-85 years: grandmothers in this age group feel, on average, about 2.1 years younger than grandchildless women.

However, the association between having grandchildren and subjective age is a compound effect of several aspects related to grandparenthood. Comparing respondents without grandchildren with their counterparts who have grandchildren but do not provide grandchild care shows a “pure” effect of being grandchildless (Figure 1). In Figure 2, we compare, among those who have grandchildren, grandparents who look after their grandchildren and those who do not. Looking after grandchildren is significantly associated with lower subjective age in later life: grandfathers aged 74-85 years and grandmothers aged 73-85 years who provide grandchild care report a subjective age that is 2.6 and 1.9 years lower, respectively, than that of grandparents who do not.

The results of this study show that grandparenthood has a heterogeneous association with subjective age, moderated by chronological age. Although we do not know when grandparents in our sample had their first grandchild, the strong association between having grandchildren and subjective age, independent of care provided to grandchildren, suggests an interpretation in line with Kaufman and Elder’s reasoning (2003). On the one hand, people who “suddenly” find themselves becoming grandparents (i.e., when they may not yet be ready for it or at an age when they perhaps planned to have more time for themselves) tend to feel older. Conversely, the presence of grandchildren at older ages, when being a grandparent is more common in all cases, tends to be associated with younger subjective age.

The association between having grandchildren and a youthful subjective age in later life concerns women only (Figure 1, right panel). This is consistent with the traditional gender norms that stress the responsibilities of women as kin keepers. In later life, while men rely mainly on their wives, women are more likely to exchange support with their children, and the presence of grandchildren increases the frequency of such contacts. Grandchildlessness after age 70 could therefore increase the risk of isolation and, in turn, women’s subjective age.

How to feel two years younger

In sum, this study found a clear association between providing grandchild care and feeling younger among the oldest group of individuals considered (men aged 74-85 and women aged 73-85). For women, this combines with an additional youthful feeling linked to having grandchildren per se. These results emphasize the importance of considering the subjectivity of ageing, which, as we show, relates to both the roles that individuals hold in later life and their timing.

The magnitude of our estimated effects, when significant, is of about 2 years (the strongest effect is 2.6 years, for 74-85 year-old men who take care of grandchildren). The substantive relevance of these results lies in the finding from previous studies that subjective age rivals or even outperforms chronological age as a predictor of psychological and health-related outcomes. Given the different measures of both subjective age and health outcomes used in previous studies, it is not easy to assess whether the magnitude we find is of practical significance. Yet, evidence indicates that healthier people feel about 2 to 3 years younger than their actual age. Future studies should better assess the practical importance of the estimated effects and further explore the causality of the factors included in the analyses.

References

Bordone V., Arpino B. (2016). Do Grandchildren Influence How Old You Feel?. Journal of Aging and Health, published online on 9 December 2015.

Christensen K., Doblhammer G., Rau R., Vaupel J. (2009). Ageing populations: The challenges ahead. The Lancet, 374(9696), 1196-1208.

Kaufman G., Elder G.H., Jr. (2003). Grandparenting and age identity. Journal of Aging Studies, 17, 269-282.

Sanderson, W.C., Scherbov, S. (2013). The characteristics approach to the measurement of population aging. Population and Development Review, 39, 673-685.

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