IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2629.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Golden Years? The Labor Market Effects of Caring for Grandchildren

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Ying

    (Impaq International)

  • Marcotte, Dave E.

    (American University)

Abstract

The number of Americans raising grandchildren has been rising steadily. In this paper, we add to what is known about the implications of this trend by focusing on the economic effects of raising a grandchild. We make use of a unique data set compiled from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics along with its Parent Identification File. Using this nationally representative sample of 3,240 grandparents who are heads of households, we estimate the effect of taking in a grandchild on a grandparent’s labor force participation and hours worked. We estimate ordinary and two-stage models that distinguishing between grandparents living only with grandchildren (skipped generation families) and those who also have taken in their own children (three-generation families). The results suggest that caring for grandchildren leads to greater attachment to the labor force, especially in skipped-generation families, for grandfathers, and among married grandparents.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Ying & Marcotte, Dave E., 2007. "Golden Years? The Labor Market Effects of Caring for Grandchildren," IZA Discussion Papers 2629, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2629
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp2629.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eibich, Peter & Siedler, Thomas, 2020. "Retirement, intergenerational time transfers, and fertility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    2. Gørtz, Mette & Sander, Sarah & Sevilla, Almudena, 2023. "Does the Child Penalty Strike Twice, and If So Why?," IZA Discussion Papers 16557, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Ho Christine, 2019. "Optimal Disability Insurance with Informal Child Care," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-42, April.
    4. Wolfgang Frimmel & Martin Halla & Bernhard Schmidpeter & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2022. "Grandmothers’ Labor Supply," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(5), pages 1645-1689.
    5. Xinxin Ma, 2022. "Grandchildren Care and Labor Supply of Middle-Aged Grandmothers: Evidence from China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 581-598, September.
    6. Zhang, Yiyun & Luh, Yir-Hueih, 2018. "Grandparents' health and family fertility choice: Evidence from Taiwan," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 294-308.
    7. Janina Reinkowski, 2014. "Empirical Essays in the Economics of Ageing and the Economics of Innovation," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 53.
    8. Lin, Mengyun & Wang, Qing, 2019. "Center-based childcare expansion and grandparents' employment and well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    9. Robin Lumsdaine & Stephanie Vermeer, 2015. "Retirement Timing of Women and the Role of Care Responsibilities for Grandchildren," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 433-454, April.
    10. Sieber, Stefan & Orsholits, Dan & Cheval, Boris & Ihle, Andreas & Kelly-Irving, Michelle & Delpierre, Cyrille & Burton-Jeangros, Claudine & Cullati, Stéphane, 2022. "Social protection expenditure on health in later life in 20 European countries: Spending more to reduce health inequalities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    11. Wang, Sophie Xuefei & Bansak, Cynthia, 2022. "Are Grandparents a Good Substitute for Parents as the Primary Caregiver? The Impact of Grandparents on Children's Academic Performance," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1100, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Martin Lakomý, 2023. "Effects of digital skills and other individual factors on retirement decision-making and their gender differences," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-12, December.
    13. Wang, Sophie Xuefei & Bansak, Cynthia, 2024. "Are grandparents a good substitute for parents as the primary caregiver? The impact of grandparents on Children's academic performance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    14. Christine Ho, 2015. "Grandchild care, intergenerational transfers, and grandparents’ labor supply," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 359-384, June.
    15. Emily E. Wiemers & Suzanne M. Bianchi, 2015. "Competing Demands from Aging Parents and Adult Children in Two Cohorts of American Women," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 127-146, March.
    16. Li-Jung Ku & Sally Stearns & Courtney Houtven & George Holmes, 2012. "The health effects of caregiving by grandparents in Taiwan: an instrumental variable estimation," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 521-540, December.
    17. Christine Ho, 2014. "Welfare-to-Work Reform and Intergenerational Support: Grandmothers’ Response to the 1996 PRWORA," Working Papers 12-2014, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.
    18. de Breij, Sascha & Huisman, Martijn & Deeg, Dorly J.H., 2020. "Macro-level determinants of post-retirement health and health inequalities: A multilevel analysis of 18 European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    grandparents; child care; labor force participation; work hours; retirement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2629. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.