Factors Associated with the Psychological Health of Grandparents as Primary Caregivers: An Analysis of Gender Differences

Abstract

Recent evidence documents that grandparents raising grandchildren face a great risk of psychological distress associated with this caregiver role. Information we know about grandparent caregivers heavily relies on grandmothers. Although the caregiver's gender is an important contextual factor in shaping the stress process, often unnoticed are grandfathers who assume the caregiving responsibility for their grandchildren. Guided by the Caregiver Stress Process model, this study examines common and differential factors associated with the psychological health of grandfathers and grandmothers living with their grandchildren without the parents of the child. Based on the National Survey of America's Families, data on 209 grandfathers and 1,781 grandmothers were analyzed. Results indicate that factors related to a lower level of the psychological health of grandmothers include their younger age, poor health, not having high school diploma, not being employed, living in poverty, and caring for grandchildren with severe behavioral problems. On the contrary, factors associated with the poor psychological health of grandfathers include their living without a spouse, poor health, and caring for very young grandchildren (under the age of five) or grandchildren with severe behavioral problems. Active social participation (volunteer activities and religious services attendance) is directly associated with better psychological health only for grandmothers. Findings suggest that social policy and interventions to help grandparents raising grandchildren should be designed in consideration of the differential factors associated with mental health by the gender of caregiving grandparents. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• grandparents raising grandchildren
• grandfathers
• mental health
• gender differences
• skipped-generation households

Notes

¹ The five items asked how often in the past month the MKAs (a) had been a very nervous person, (b) felt calm or peaceful, (c) felt downhearted and blue, (d) had been a happy person, and (e) could not be cheered up.

² The three questions that were commonly asked for MKAs of each age group of grandchildren included the following: the child (a) doesn't get along with other kids, (b) can't concentrate or pay attention for long, and (c) has been unhappy, sad, or depressed. MKAs for younger children were also asked whether the child (a) feels worthless or inferior; (b) has been nervous, high-strung, or tense; and (c) acts too young for his or her age. MKAs for older children were asked whether the child (a) has trouble sleeping, (b) lies or cheats, and (c) does poorly on schoolwork.

³ The poverty status was defined as (a) very poor (having a family income below 50% of the official poverty thresholds), (b) poor (family income between 50% and 100% of the OPT), (c) near poor (family income between 100% and 200% of the OPT), and (d) nonpoor (family income above 200% of the OPT).

⁴ When a potential multicollinearity problem among independent variables was examined, none of the independent variables was found to be correlated above │.50│ for both grandfathers and grandmothers.