What is the impact on Grandparents of their caring responsibilities?

1. What is the impact on Grandparents of their caring responsibilities? Karen Glaser, Giorgio DiGessa, Anthea Tinker Economic and Social Research Council Institute of Gerontology, Department Social Science, Health & Medicine, King’s College London 15 March 2013

2. Outline of presentation The research study: • Funder and timescale • Data and methods • What do we know? • The objectives of the research • The research questions

3. 1. The research study – funder and timescale • Funded by the ESRC, in partnership with Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Grandparents Plus and the Beth Johnson Foundation • ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative Phase 1 • Start April 2013 - October 2014 • Fits well with European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations

4. 2. Data and Methods • English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) • Multivariate longitudinal analysis to capture impact of grandparent childcare on health and wellbeing outcomes across the various survey waves. • Analysis will focus on interactions between socio-economic circumstances and grandparent childcare at each point in time. • Will exploit both the longitudinal and the retrospective elements by looking at lifecourse and time-varying predictors associated with grandparent health and wellbeing.

5. 3. What do we know? • Grandparents play crucial role in childcare. • For example, in Britain, nearly two thirds (63%) of grandparents with grandchildren under 16 are providing childcare often to enable parents to work. • Our work shows rise in ‘skipped-generation households’ (these households more likely to fall below poverty line). • Those with ‘primary responsibility ’ for grandchild care thought to be among the most vulnerable.

6. What do we know? • Greater vulnerabilities associated primary responsibility for grandchild care makes understanding its consequences for health and wellbeing a critical issue, yet research to date is inconclusive. • Few studies that have investigated this issue longitudinally (that is, taking pre-existing health and socio-economic conditions to into account)and so have led to mixed results. • As these groups are often among the poorest, the relationship between grandparental care giving and health and wellbeing may be different for more disadvantaged groups - suggesting a complex relationship between disadvantage and health and wellbeing outcomes for older people.

7. 4. The objective of the research • To clarify how grandparental childcare interacts with other socio-economic, demographic and health determinants to impact on health and wellbeing of grandparents.

8. 5. The research questions • To investigate patterns of grandparent health and wellbeing and their relationship to socio-economic, demographic and caring roles (both for children and adults). • To examine how cumulative advantage/disadvantage across the life course (e.g. in terms of childhood, work, partnership, health and/or housing trajectories), in addition to socio-economic and demographic characteristics, is associated with grandparent health and wellbeing. (value of life histories from age 16)

9. 5. The research questions • To investigate how variations over time in grandparent childcare, and other socio-economic and demographic factors affect grandparents’ own health and wellbeing. We will examine how socio-economic status at each wave interacts with grandparent childcare to affect grandparents’ own health and wellbeing. • For example, does grandparent childcare have a deleterious effect on health and wellbeing but only for those in the most vulnerable groups and at the highest care intensities? • Does grandparental involvement at lower intensities have a beneficial impact on health and wellbeing?

10. We welcome questions and comments