Spillovers of the Heroin Epidemic on Grandparent Caregiving

This paper estimates the effect of the OxyContin reformulation and the subsequent heroin crisis on grandparent caregiving in the United States—grandparents who are primarily responsible for their grandchildren. The empirical approach is a difference-in-differences and a series of event studies that exploit variation in the timing of the reformulation of OxyContin and geographic variation in pre-reformulation rates of nonmedical use of OxyContin across states. I find that a standard deviation increase in pre-reformulation nonmedical use of OxyContin leads to higher grandparent caregiving. Increases range from 2.5 to 8.5%, on average, relative to the baseline mean. This change is more pronounced among grandparents between 46 and 65 years of age. When I examine changes in heroin-related mortality as a possible mechanism, I find modest increases in grandparent caregiving when no parents are present or when no or only one parent is present of 1.80 and 1.50% of the baseline mean, on average.