The quality of relationships with adult children and depressive symptoms among grandparents

Abstract

Objectives: The present study aims to identify distinct types of relationships between grandparents and their adult children, measure the associations between these relationship types and depressive symptoms among grandparents, and determine whether these associations vary by grandparent status.

Method: This study uses data from a sample of 1,196 grandparents age 51 and older from the 2014 Health and Retirement Study. Latent class analysis (LCA) is applied and identifies types of grandparent–adult children relationships. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression models are used to estimate the association between relationship types and depressive symptoms by grandparent status.

Results: LCA identified four grandparent-adult children relationship types: amicable, ambivalent, detached, and disharmonious. Custodial and co-parenting grandparents were most likely to report having an ambivalent relationship with their adult children. Among co-parenting and custodial grandparents, disharmonious relationships were associated with more depressive symptoms.

Conclusion: Interventions are suggested to improve emotional relationships with adult children and dyadic family relationships among grandparent families.

Keywords:

• Intergenerational relationships
• depressive symptoms
• grandparenting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported a grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health to the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan [T32-AG000221]. Data used for this research were provided by the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), managed by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health [U01AG009741].