Study Finds Grandparenting Has Health Benefits

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A new study by the American Psychological Association has found that helping to care for grandchildren can help stave off cognitive decline in older adults. The study was published in the journal Psychology and Aging.

Lead researcher Flavia Chereches, Master of Science and PhD Candidate, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands led her team in examining data from 2,887 grandparents, with a minimum age of 50 and an average age of 67, who had taken part in the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA).

 The ELSA is an ongoing study on aging in England that began in 2002 and has collected nine waves of complete data. The examined participants answered survey questions and completed cognitive tests three times between 2016 and 2022. 

Chereches explained that “Many grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren—care that supports families and society more broadly,” and that “we wanted to see if providing grandchild care might benefit grandparents’ health, potentially slowing down cognitive decline.”

The survey asked participants questions like whether they had cared for their grandchildren over the past year, and if so, how often. It also sought responses to detailed questions about the activities they did with their grandchildren, such as whether they watched them overnight, helped with homework, or cared for them while they were sick.

The researchers found that grandparents who provided more childcare had better health scores on memory and verbal fluency tests compared to those who did not, even after the scores were adjusted for factors like age and health.

They also found that looking after grandchildren slowed cognitive decline was more significantly more pronounced in grandmothers.

Grandmothers who looked after their grandchildren were found to have experienced a smaller decline on cognitive tests over the course of the study compared to those who did not.

However, the study also found that grandparents who already possessed relatively high baselines for cognitive function at the beginning of the study were more likely to have greater involvement in the lives of their grandchildren.

Regarding the findings, Chereches stated “What stood out most to us was that being a caregiving grandparent seemed to matter more for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provided care or what exactly they did with their grandchildren.”