Abstract
Against the background of rapid population ageing, studying social participation in later life is of particular relevance within the framework of active ageing. Although caring for grandchildren has taken a central role for older persons due to unprecedented overlap between grandparents’ and their grandchildren’s lives, whether the relationship between grandparental childcare and social activities is characterised by cumulation or competition remains under-explored. Grandparental childcare may increase the purpose in life for grandparents, stimulating their social participation, or it may impose time and energy constraints on it. This study aims to assess the effect of providing grandchild care on participation in social activities for people aged 50–85 in Europe. Using an instrumental variable approach on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we find no significant negative effects of grandchild care on engagement in at least one social activity. However, regular provision of grandchild care has a significant negative effect on the number of activities in which grandmothers participate. When considering the activities separately by type we also find, for grandmothers only, a negative effect on volunteering, engagement in educational or training courses and participation in political or community-related organisation.
Highlights
Active ageing, defined by the World Health Organization as “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age” (WHO, 2002: 12), is one of the most important topics on the political agenda
Living aside the benefits of participating in social activities, the aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between regular grandchild care and social participation
As it can be seen from the table, participation in at least one social activity is quite common among Europeans
Summary
Active ageing, defined by the World Health Organization as “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age” (WHO, 2002: 12), is one of the most important topics on the political agenda. Engaging in grandchild care on a regular basis may reduce time and willingness of older people to participate into social activities and this may have negative consequences for grandparents’ wellbeing. During their life, individuals interact with others, within and outside the family. The individuals “want” to disengage in later life and do so by reducing the number and variety of roles they play and weakening the intensity of those that remain; on the other hand, societal norms offer them the freedom to disengage Along these lines some scholars have referred to old age as a roleless period (Burgess, 1960)
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