Family cultures, labour market structures and intensive grandchild care: a European comparison

Background. We investigate individual-level variations across Europe in grandparental childcare and whether key family cultures and labour market structures are important for shaping the role grandparents play in family life.
Methods and Data. We use data from two comparable European surveys (SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe; and ELSA, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing) and macro-level indicators (such as proportion of mothers not in paid work) to investigate personal, familial and institutional characteristics associated with grandparental care across 11 European countries. Multilevel analysis was used to examine to what extent a country’s cultural-contextual environment and individual-level characteristics help to explain variations in intensive grandparent childcare.
Results. Our preliminary findings show that grandparents in poor health, who are older than 70 and who are in paid work are less likely to provide childcare. However, socio-economic and demographic characteristics do not fully explain the dramatic differences observed across Europe in the prevalence of intensive grandparental childcare. Our analyses support the hypothesis that cultures and structures (which in turn influence policies) shape the extent to which grandparents provide intensive childcare across Europe.