UCLA

A considerable amount of research has been done to investigate the effects of grandparenting on grandparents' health. However, most of these studies were conducted in Western societies and have found mixed results. In addition, previous studies were often hampered by small-scale convenience samples, cross-sectional design, or lack of theoretical frameworks. To fill these gaps, this study draws data from the Department of Health in Taiwan to extend the knowledge of grandparenting to a cultural context that differs from the United States, where the majority of the research in this area has been conducted. The main purposes of this study are to explore the social and cultural context of grandparenting in Taiwan, and to examine the implications of grandparenting on grandparents' health.

To examine the profile of grandparental care and its health implications in Taiwan, this study uses the Study of Health and Living Status of the Elderly (SHLSE) data. It first uses the 1996 wave of data to examine how individual characteristics and attitudes toward grandparenting are related to the practice of grandparenting. Then it conducts longitudinal analysis using data from the 1996, 1999, and 2003 waves to evaluate the impacts of grandparenting on grandparents' physical health. Last, based on a conceptual framework and its assumptions, structural equation modeling is utilized to investigate the relationships among grandparenting, stress, and social support, and their implications for grandparents' mental health. The findings reveal that grandparental care is a common phenomenon in Taiwan, and it exists across genders and social classes. Both grandfathers and grandmothers embrace supportive attitudes toward providing care for grandchildren. One-fourth of grandfathers and more than one-third of grandmothers were providing certain levels of care for their grandchildren in 1996. It also finds that providing care on a regular basis for grandchildren has protective effects on grandparents' health, regardless of grandparents' gender, age, or living arrangement. Moreover, while it remains highly prevalent and normative for Taiwanese families to adopt a multi-generational living arrangement, such arrangement does facilitate interactions and exchanges between generations, and grandparents can benefit from providing childcare through the elevated social support they receive.

This study demonstrates that while older adults are usually profiled as care recipients, actually a significant portion of them are assuming substantial responsibility in childcare for their families as well as for our society. Although most of the literature on grandparenting is from the United States, this study suggests caution in assuming that findings in America may be valid across societies, or that interventions based on these findings can be applicable in other countries.