Differential Costs of Raising Grandchildren on Older Mother-Adult Child Relations in Black and White Families.

Drawing from theories of affect, role strain and stress processes, we studied the impact of raising grandchildren on older mothers' relationships with the adult offspring whose children they raised, with particular attention to how these patterns differ by race and ethnicity. We used mixed-methods data collected from 531 older mothers regarding their relationships with 1935 of their adult children as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel regression analyses showed that raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child closeness in Black families; however, in White families, raising grandchildren was associated with greater mother-adult child conflict. Qualitative analyses revealed that these differences could be explained by the tendency of Black grandmothers to emphasize positive aspects of raising grandchildren, compared to White grandmothers, who viewed raising grandchildren as demanding and who described their exchanges with their adult children as unequal. Overall, our findings reflect racial and ethnic differences in intergenerational solidarity.

A Coordinated Data Analysis of Four Studies Exploring Age Differences in Social Interactions and Loneliness During a Global Pandemic.

OBJECTIVES: Examining loneliness and social isolation during population-wide historical events may shed light on important theoretical questions about age differences, including whether these differences hold across different regions and the time course of the unfolding event. We used a systematic, preregistered approach of coordinated data analysis (CDA) of 4 studies (total N = 1,307; total observations = 18,492) that varied in design (intensive repeated-measures and cross-sectional), region, timing, and timescale during the first year of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. METHODS: We harmonized our data sets to a common period within 2020-2021 and created a common set of variables. We used a combination of ordinary least squares regression and multilevel modeling to address the extent to which there was within- and between-person variation in the associations between social isolation and loneliness, and whether these associations varied as a function of age. RESULTS: Within- and between-person effects of social interactions were negatively associated with loneliness in 1 study; in follow-up sensitivity analyses, these patterns held across early and later pandemic periods. Across all data sets, there was no evidence of age differences in the within-person or between-person associations of social interactions and loneliness. DISCUSSION: Applying the CDA methodological framework allowed us to detect common and divergent patterns of social interactions and loneliness across samples, ages, regions, periods, and study designs.

Adult Children's Education and Mothers' Psychological Well-Being: Do Adult Children's Problems Mediate This Relationship?

OBJECTIVES: A growing body of literature documents a positive association between adult children's education and older parents' health, and existing studies have identified social support, social influence, and material transfers as factors linking adult children's education and various dimensions of older parents' health. The present study joins this literature by assessing adult children's problems as mechanisms that may underlie disparities in psychological well-being between mothers whose adult children have completed higher and lower levels of education. METHODS: Using 2 waves of longitudinal data collected in 2001-2003 and 2008-2011 from 400 mothers aged 73-85 years at the second wave as part of the Within-Family Differences Study, we examine the role of adult children's problems in mediating the association between adult children's education and mothers' depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Mothers with children who completed post-high school education reported fewer depressive symptoms than mothers whose children all completed high school or less. We found evidence that this relationship was mediated by the proportion of adult children who have experienced physical and emotional problems in the last 5 years. DISCUSSION: This study underscores the importance of considering how resources and risks that affect well-being accumulate both across the life course and across generations. Providing education opportunities to younger generations and enhancing programs that address challenges that low-attaining children may face have the potential to help minimize socioeconomic disparities in psychological well-being among older adults.