Coresident Grandparents’ Mortality Risk and Racial-Ethnic Variations

Hongwei Xu , Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY)
John R. Logan, Brown University
Todd K. Gardner, U.S. Census Bureau

As the American population is aging rapidly, grandparents who live with and care for their grandchildren has emerged as a particularly vulnerable group since the 1990s. Many of them have spent an extended period of time (3 years or more) providing primary care to their grandchildren. Researchers and policy makers are increasingly concerned about the additional economic and health effects of living with and caring for grandchildren on grandparents who are coping with otherwise normal aging challenges. This study examines the association between coresident grandparenting and mortality with a focus on racial-ethnic heterogeneity. To overcome the limitation of insufficient sample size for racial-ethnic minorities, we will link person records from the restricted Census 2000 long-form sample (about 20% of all the U.S. residents) to their vital records from the Census Numident file. We will perform separate survival analyses for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian coresident grandfathers and grandmothers.

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 Presented in Session 32. Grandparents and Grandparenting