Are the grandparents alright? The health consequences of grandparental childcare provision
利用美国健康与退休研究数据，以子女性别比作为工具变量，发现祖父母提供孙辈照料会损害其身体功能和主观健康，且强度越大影响越大，对祖母影响更显著。
Abstract This paper examines the causal effect of childcare provision on grandparents’ health in the United States. We use the sex ratio among older adults’ children as an instrument for grandparental childcare provision. Our instrument exploits that parents of daughters transition to grandparenthood earlier and invest more in their grandchildren than parents of sons. We estimate 2SLS regressions using data from the Health and Retirement Study. The results suggest that providing childcare is detrimental to grandparents’ physical functioning and subjective health. We show that these effects increase with the intensity of grandchild care provision, and the effects are driven primarily by grandmothers.