Scholarlink

<p>The death of a spouse is a major life event, commonly experienced in later adulthood. While existing research suggests that widowhood may reduce the provision of grandchild care, most studies have relied on cross-sectional comparisons between widowed and non-widowed individuals. In this study, we use longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; <i>n</i> = 27,467) to examine how changes in partnership status are associated with grandparental caregiving over time. Using panel fixed effects regression models, we find that widowhood significantly decreases grandchild care provision among grandfathers but not among grandmothers. For grandfathers, grandchild care declines by approximately 13&#xa0;days per year shortly after widowhood, 19&#xa0;days 2 years after, and 16&#xa0;days 4 years after, relative to pre-widowhood levels. In contrast, the effects for grandmothers are small and statistically non-significant. These findings suggest that in contemporary Europe, grandfathers substantially reduce their caregiving involvement following the loss of a spouse, whereas grandmothers’ provision of grandchild care remains largely resilient to widowhood.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Widowhood and grandchild care: a longitudinal study of European grandmothers and grandfathers

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2026年2月20日

查看全文
  • Elisa Tambellini,
  • Mirkka Danielsbacka,
  • Antti Olavi Tanskanen,
  • Hans Hämäläinen,
  • Anna Rotkirch

摘要

The death of a spouse is a major life event, commonly experienced in later adulthood. While existing research suggests that widowhood may reduce the provision of grandchild care, most studies have relied on cross-sectional comparisons between widowed and non-widowed individuals. In this study, we use longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; n = 27,467) to examine how changes in partnership status are associated with grandparental caregiving over time. Using panel fixed effects regression models, we find that widowhood significantly decreases grandchild care provision among grandfathers but not among grandmothers. For grandfathers, grandchild care declines by approximately 13 days per year shortly after widowhood, 19 days 2 years after, and 16 days 4 years after, relative to pre-widowhood levels. In contrast, the effects for grandmothers are small and statistically non-significant. These findings suggest that in contemporary Europe, grandfathers substantially reduce their caregiving involvement following the loss of a spouse, whereas grandmothers’ provision of grandchild care remains largely resilient to widowhood.