Family structure, gender, and subjective well-being: effect of children before and after COVID-19 in Japan

Abstract

AbstractGrandparents were anticipated to participate in grand-rearing. The COVID-19 pandemic had detached grandparents from rearing grandchildren. The research questions of this study were as follows: How does the change in family relations impact the Subjective well-being (SWB) of grandparents and parents? Using independently collected individual-level panel data over 2016–2023, we examined how family structure influenced SWB before and after COVID-19. We focused on the effects of children, grandchildren, and their gender on grandparents and parents. We found that compared with the happiness level before COVID-19, (1) granddaughters increased their grandmothers’ SWB after COVID-19, (2) both daughters and sons reduced their fathers’ SWB after COVID-19, whereas neither daughters nor sons changed their mothers’ SWB, and (3) the negative effect of sons reduced substantially if their fathers had younger brothers. Learning from interactions with younger brothers in childhood, fathers could avoid the deterioration of relationships with their sons, even when unexpected events possibly changed the lifestyle of the family and their relationship.