Child Well-Being and the Role of Grandparents in Contemporary China

Background: Despite rapid social changes and urbanization, the majority of Chinese adults 65 and older live with their adult children and provide care for their grandchildren.  Few studies, however,  have examined the extent to which co-residence with grandparents may be linked with academic and socioemotional development of grandchildren. Grounded in intergenerational solidarity theory, we examined a contemporary Chinese sample to examine the relationship between academic and socioemotional well-being among children and grandparent co-residence. 

Methods: We used original data collected in 2014 among first-grade children in Shanghai, China. A convenience sampling strategy was used to select 7 out of 17 districts in Shanghai that represented diverse socioeconomic backgrounds between districts. Approximately one to five schools were sampled within each of the chosen 7 districts with a total of 73 classrooms. Questionnaires were disseminated to 17 school administrators, 73 classroom teachers, and 2,282 parents of children in selected first-grade classrooms. The response rate for parents was 95% and 100% from school administrator and teachers. The questionnaire included detailed household information to identify grandmother and/or grandfather co-residence. Our outcome measures included academic performance and socioemotional well-being. Children’s academic performance was collected from teachers who ranked children’s performance with 5 ratings from “1: far below grade” to “5: far above grade level.” The Chinese version of the Child Behavior Checklist was used to assess children’s socioemotional well-being. A rich set of demographic characteristics were also collected including parental income, education, and perceived social status. OLS regression analysis was conducted with robust cluster standard error adjusted for the nested feature of the data (i.e., children were nested in classroom and school district).

Results:A total of 40% of our sample co-resided with their parents and either or both grandparent(s). Among them, 26% of the children resided with their parents and both grandparents; 11% lived with their parents and grandmother; and 3% with parents and grandfather. Of importance, children who co-resided with grandparent(s) tended to be from families with relatively advantaged family backgrounds as measured by parental education and family income, compared to children who did not have co-resident grandparents. Multivariate analyses indicate that grandmother co-residence during primary school were associated with significantly higher academic performance rated by teachers and positive socioemotional well-being among grandchildren. We note that children who resided only with their parents and grandfather seemed to perform worse both academically and socioemotionally, although this group had a small sample and thus caution is warranted when drawing conclusions.

Implications: Consistent with intergenerational solidarity theory, our findings suggest the importance of grandparents in both the academic and socioemotional development of young children in contemporary China. Our results speak to the importance of intergenerational family-structures as well as supporting the intergenerational family-oriented culture in China.  Social work as a profession is in it’s nascent stage in China and it is important for both practitioners as well as policy makers to consider the important roles that grandparents play in nurturing the next generation of children in Chinese society.