The Time Intensity of Childcare Provided by Older Immigrant Women in the United States

Abstract

Older adults comprise an increasing share of new legal admits to the U.S. While many are financially dependent on their families, a more complete picture requires taking into account the non-monetary contributions of this population. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), this study examines whether older recent immigrant women provide more unpaid childcare than their native-born and more established immigrant counterparts. Results suggest that while older recent immigrant women are more likely to provide unpaid childcare, this effect is eliminated upon controlling for demographic characteristics. However, among those who do provide childcare, older recent immigrant women provide more hours of care even after controlling for demographic and household characteristics. This pattern holds up even after restricting the analysis to women living with young children. These results may signal reciprocal supportive networks. Working-age adults may financially support older recent immigrants while older recent immigrants provide unremunerated childcare for working-age adults.

Social Security Contributions and Return Migration Among Older Male Mexican Immigrants

“…Instead of dropping these cases, observations missing information for age of arrival and citizenship status are recoded into a separate analytical category. This is consistent with other studies (Flippen & Tienda, 2000;Vega, 2016).…”

Scoping Review: Intergenerational Resource Transfer and Possible Enabling Factors

“…A number of studies reported a correlation between possessing good health in the older generation and increasing downward financial transfers [6,19,44,57] as well as instrumental transfers, including practical help and caring for grandchildren [18,43,52]. Possessing poor health or health limitations in the older generation had negative impact on parents' and grandparents' financial transfers [9,19,20,57,78] and on instrumental transfers, including help, care for grandchildren [9,20,23,28,39,51,52,73], and physical transfers [47]. It was found that older Israeli parents with depressive symptoms or IADL limitations were less likely to be net givers of money and instrumental support.…”

“…Unemployed children received more money, materials, and practical support [1,29,44]. Most studies found that the older generation's employment was positively associated with downward financial support [21,29,51,63], emotional support [74], and overall support [14] but was negatively related to downward instrumental transfer [1], including offering childcare or grandchild care [73]. Knodel and Nguyen (2015) [52] found that grandparents who worked provided more care to grandchildren in Myanmar but not in Vietnam.…”

We Are Aging Too! Exploring the Social Impact of Late-Life Migration among Older Immigrants in the United States

“…In tandem, older immigrants' social, emotional, and economic reliance on their adult children can lead to feelings of powerlessness (Liou & Shenk, 2016), diminish decision-making power (Da & Garcia, 2015), and inhibit successful integration into the host country (Treas & Mazumdar, 2002). Especially among older immigrant women (Liou & Shenk, 2016), who tend to shoulder the caregiving burden (Vega, 2017), perceived obligations to provide childcare and domestic help (Da & Garcia, 2015) can inhibit independence, further limited by language barriers-which can hamper engagement in religious, cultural, and community activities (Treas & Mazumdar, 2002)-and by the lack of a driver's license and limited public transportation, (Dabelko-Schoeny et al, 2021).…”