This work investigates the link between grandmothers’ participation in the labour market during adult life (between ages 18 and 49) and their provision of grandparental childcare later in life. Our ...contribution is twofold. First, we consider the Italian case, that despite its reliance on informal care has been under-researched. Second, we test two contrasting arguments on the association between grandchild care provision and grandmother’s work histories. On the one hand, lifelong homemakers could be more family-oriented and more likely to provide grandchild care in later life. On the other hand, ever-employed grandmothers could be more likely to have employed daughters and provide grandchild care to support their working careers. With data from the Multipurpose surveys on Families and Social Subjects (2003, 2009, 2016), we estimate logistic regression models, considering various specifications of grandparental childcare, and measuring labour market attachment in three different ways (having ever worked, length of working career, employment interruptions for family reasons). Results show a dualism between grandmothers who ever worked and those who never did, with the former more likely to provide grandparental childcare, especially when parents are at work. Grandmothers who worked only a few years are more similar, in terms of grandchild care provision, to those who worked throughout their life, than to lifelong homemakers. This association is stronger in the South and North-West of Italy. Overall, we showed that care responsibilities are inextricable from labour market participation, as grandmothers who already juggled family and work are those supporting the most their adult children’s work–family reconciliation.
This study accounts for the heterogeneous consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility plans and behaviours, by focusing on the motivations for suspended pre-Covid fertility plans and on those ...for new fertility plans that arose during the pandemic. We rely on unique data collected with a repeated cross-sectional survey conducted in April/May 2021 and October/November 2021 on a sample of young Italians (aged 18-34). We estimate a set of multinomial and logit models to examine some correlates of fertility plans and behaviours. Then, we provide a more qualitative analysis of the reasons behind the resulting patterns of associations. Changes in fertility plans and behaviours from pre-COVID intentions clearly show that the economic recession burdens unequally individuals and their opportunities to cope with obstacles to both work and family involvement. At the same time, those who started to plan childbirth during the pandemic, frequently cite as important motivations the increased opportunities to enjoy the family life, the more balanced work and family involvement, the higher share of domestic tasks in the couple, and the improved relationship quality. Our results suggest the need for exploring also positive channels through which the Covid-19 crisis had provided opportunities for planning new births.
Time preferences and fertility Bellani, Daniela; Arpino, Bruno; Vignoli, Daniele
Demographic research,
2021, Volume:
44
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Time preferences, also referred to as impatience, is a personal characteristic that has been found to influence different types of decisions, from financial investments to schooling decisions. The ...present study is the first that empirically explores whether this trait represents a determinant of human reproductive behaviors. Fertility decisions, as all life actions, imply a balancing of anticipated costs and benefits whose expectations are formed under uncertainty. Fertility research has addressed the backward reasonings (e.g., socioeconomic, psychological, biological factors) influencing fertility decisions. Yet, the role of forward factors, such as the preference for immediate but lower benefits versus future but higher benefits, in influencing fertility decisions has been overlooked. Data are from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth carried out by the Bank of Italy every two years on a sample of about 8,000 households. In particular, we make use of a question included in the 2004, 2008, 2010, and 2012 waves to examine whether, controlling for backward factors, impatience affects parity progressions. The empirical finding points to the importance of considering time discounting preferences (as well as other forward-looking factors) in fertility research to gain a more complete understanding of fertility behaviours.
El objetivo del trabajo es, tomando como referencia la revolución de género, explorar si la desigual participación relativa en la provisión de recursos económicos y la realización de las tareas ...domésticas en el hogar se asocia con diferencias en los niveles de satisfacción con la vida para las mujeres y hombres adultos que conviven en pareja en España. Para ello, se analizan mediante modelos de regresión lineal las muestras españolas para la Encuesta Social Europea de 2004 y 2010 conjuntamente. En España se observan dos situaciones diferentes definidas por la distinta capacidad económica del hogar: en los hogares sin dificultades económicas, los comportamientos de género tienen una menor influencia sobre los niveles de satisfacción con la vida; sin embargo, en aquellos con dificultades económicas los perfiles de género más tradicionales se asocian con una mayor satisfacción masculina, al contrario que en el caso femenino.
Due to the increasing central role of grandparenthood in later life, sound knowledge about its effects on older people's health is more and more important. This paper examines the impact of becoming ...a grandparent, having more grandchildren, and engaging in grandchild care on depressive symptoms. Moreover, based on the structural ambivalence theory, we expect that such effects differ across contexts as (grand)childcare is differently organised across Europe. Taking advantage of the longitudinal structure of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we estimate fixed-effects models. Our results show that women face a decline in depressive symptoms when becoming grandmothers, but neither an increase in the number of grandchildren nor changes in grandchild care are associated with changes in depressive symptoms. The analyses by country highlight differences across Europe, without, however, drawing a clear pattern. Our results show that depression consequences of grandparenthood also vary between countries characterised by similar roles of grandparents. This suggests the need to make available more refined questions about grandparenthood in surveys on older people.
Grandparenthood is an important phase of life for many individuals, and the grandparent role has consequences on younger generations and grandparents themselves. Despite the importance of the ...grandparent role, little is known about the demography of grandparenthood. In this study, we examine the variability of demographic aspects of grandparenthood (being a grandparent, number of grandchildren, having at least one young grandchild) according to family (partnership and fertility) histories. Using retrospective data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we employ sequence and cluster analyses to group individuals according to similar patterns of fertility and partnership histories observed between age 15 and 49. In a second step, we use logistic and Poisson regressions to quantify how demographic aspects of grandparenthood vary across the identified family clusters at different ages and by gender. Family histories are greatly heterogeneous with respect to timing, quantum, and probability of experiencing certain events. This heterogeneity is reflected in a strong variability in the probability of having (young) grandchildren and their number at different ages across the clusters of family trajectories.
The broad definition of intergenerational contact includes not only meeting face-to-face, but also the important element of communication at a distance, such as via telephone. With the pervasion of ...the Internet and electronic devices, digital contact has become another increasingly important option. We examined digital contact between grandparents and grandchildren in comparison with traditional forms of contact (i.e. face-to-face and by telephone) using Italian data from the 2016
Families, Social Subjects and life cycle (FSS)
survey. We found that grandparents belonging to younger cohorts, those with higher education, those who lived in urban areas and those in better health were more likely to maintain digital contact with their grandchildren. Results also show that digital contact tends to compensate for a lack of (frequent) face-to-face contact, and to cumulate with telephone contact. Our results have significant implications for the current and future development of intergenerational relationships as they suggest an increasing role of digital contact for distant geographical situations. Against the background of persisting inequalities in the access and the use of the Internet, our findings emphasise the need to improve digital network connectivity and user skills, particularly among specific sub-groups of the population.
This thematic collection seeks to reflect and push forward the current state of the art in the study of grandparenthood and grandparenting in Italy in a comparative European perspective. Starting ...from the demography of grandparenthood, intergenerational transfers, contacts and living proximity between grandparents, parents and children and the characteristics of such exchanges are analysed. Furthermore, the consequences of grandparenting and especially of grandchild care provision in terms of fertility behaviour and work participation and well-being are investigated. The research articles aim to shed light on the complexity of factors which shape the effects of grandparents’ availability and the behaviour and well-being of each of the three generations involved.
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