The Impact of Grandchild Care on the Mental Health of Young-old
Elderly individuals play a crucial economic and social role in providing grandchild care within families.However,the impact of such care on the psychological health of the elderly remains unclear.According to the World Health Organization's age classification for old age,individuals aged 60～74 are considered young-old and are the pri-mary group involved in grandchild care.Focusing the study on this group helps control for health differences caused by age to some extent.Using cross-sectional data from the 2020 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey(CLASS),this study employs instrumental variable methods to address endogeneity issues such as bidirectional causality and propensi-ty score matching to overcome sample self-selection problems.The study investigates the impact of grandchild care on the psychological health of the young-old.The results show that participation in grandchild care positively affects the psychological health of the young-old.The regression models respectively included the intensity of grandchild care,and work intensity,as well as the interaction term of whether living with children.The results showed that the increase in work intensity weakened the positive impact of high-intensity caregiving on psychological health.Living with children enhanced the positive impact of high-intensity caregiving on the psychological health of young-old,but living with chil-dren might directly have a negative impact on the psychological health of young-old.By considering the moderating ef-fects of work intensity and living arrangements on the impact of grandchild care on elderly psychological health,this study addresses gaps in previous research.It also provides some policy implications:raising public awareness about the benefits of grandchild care,developing public training programs on grandchild care to help them better manage relation-ships with their children and grandchildren,avoiding the negative impact of intergenerational conflicts on mental health,and striving to create a harmonious family atmosphere.Flexible work policies should be formulated for young-old who undertake dual roles of work and caregiving,support young-old participating in grandchild care to integrate in-to multi-generational housing models,and fund improvements in the living conditions of multi-generational families.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
