Changing patterns of grandparenting and their implications for active ageing in England and South Korea

Abstract

This chapter begins with a brief description of active ageing strategy as a social investment strategy in the context of ageing populations. It gives an overview of recent studies that address the multiple aspects of grandparenting, and examines the cost–benefit trade-offs of grandparenting while being mindful of policy contexts such as public childcare services. The chapter then turns to focus on grandparenting in South Korea (hereafter, Korea) and the United Kingdom to examine whether and how childcare programme correlates differ across a wide range of contexts. The chapter uses data from the Korea Time Use Survey (K-TUS) and UK Time Use Survey (UK-TUS) to study the amount of time spent by older adults in providing childcare, and their general use of time in other activities. Ultimately, the chapter estimates fixed-effect models using the data from the Korea Longitudinal Study of Ageing (KLoSA) and the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) to investigate the inter-relationship between grandparenting and different productive activities.