Title

Grandpa and the snapper: the wellbeing of the elderly who live with children

Author(s)

Angus Deaton Angus Deaton (Princeton University and NBER)

Arthur A. Stone Arthur Stone (Stony Brook University)

Abstract

Elderly Americans who live with people under age 18 have lower life evaluations than those who do not. They also experience worse emotional outcomes, including less happiness and enjoyment, and more stress, worry, and anger. In part, these negative outcomes come from selection into living with a child, especially selection on poor health, which is associated with worse outcomes irrespective of living conditions. Yet even with controls, the elderly who live with children do worse. This is in sharp contrast to younger adults who live with children, likely their own, whose life evaluation is no different in the presence of the child once background conditions are controlled for. Parents, like elders, have enhanced negative emotions in the presence of a child, but unlike elders, also have enhanced positive emotions. In parts of the world where fertility rates are higher, the elderly do not appear to have lower life evaluations when they live with children; such living arrangements are more usual, and the selection into them is less negative. They also share with younger adults the enhanced positive and negative emotions that come with children. The misery of the elderly living with children is one of the prices of the demographic transition.

Creation Date

2013-07

Section URL ID

RPDS

Paper Number

Grandpa_and_the_snapper_complete_version_2.pdf

URL

https://rpds.princeton.edu/sites/rpds/files/media/grandpa_and_the_snapper_complete_version_2.pdf

File Function

Jel

D190, D630, J120, J140, J130

Keyword(s)

elderly, grandparents, anger, life evaluation, children, parents

Suppress

false

Series

5