To grandmother's house you go: A cross-lagged test of the association between grandchild care and work-family conflict

Abstract

This study examines the association between grandchild care—a prevalent form of family support in which a grandparent provides non-custodial care to their grandchildren—and parents' work-family conflict. Drawing from the work-family and intergenerational support literatures, we propose a bidirectional association between grandchild care and parents' work-family conflict and examine parent-grandparent conflict regarding caregiving as a boundary condition. Participants included 347 working parents whose own parents provided grandchild care. Results from a cross-lagged panel model indicated that grandchild care at Time 1 was associated with lower levels of time- and strain-based family-interference-with-work (FIW) one year later. By contrast, Time 1 grandchild care was not associated with Time 2 work-interference-with-family. Contrary to predictions, Time 1 work-family conflict did not predict grandchild care at Time 2. However, caregiving conflict moderated the association between both time- and strain-based FIW at Time 2 and grandchild care at Time 2, such that there was a negative association when caregiving conflict was at average or above-average levels. Interestingly, caregiving conflict at Time 1 was associated with higher levels of FIW at Time 2, and supplemental analyses indicated that both grandchild care and WIF at Time 1 predicted higher levels of caregiving conflict at Time 2. These results support the proposition that family support may reduce FIW and suggest that grandchild care can be a mixed blessing for employees' work-family conflict.