Grandparenthood, Grandparenting, and Working Longer: Do the Genders of Grandparent and of Grandchild’s Parent Matter?

With the growing importance of grandparenting and working longer, grandparents might
experience tensions between paid and unpaid work similar to younger workers. I examine
changes in older workers’ engagement in paid employment following their transitions to
grandparenthood. Due to gendered expectations for caretaking, I expect the change in women’s
risk of quitting paid work to be more positive than men’s when they become grandparents and
the change in labor force exit risk to be more positive for older workers of both genders when
daughters, compared to sons, become parents. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), I
find that becoming a grandparent is indeed associated with a higher exit risk for female workers
only when their daughters become parents. Both paternal grandmothers’ and maternal
grandfathers’ average exit risks remain unchanged from the pre-grandparenthood levels, while
paternal grandfathers’ risk drops. These findings suggest that gendered expectations surrounding
caregiving persist across generations.