Kinlessness at Older Ages: Prevalence and Heterogeneity in 27 Countries.

Objectives: We provide recent and detailed estimates of the prevalence of kinlessness (i.e., people lacking [close] kin) among older individuals in 27 countries.

Changes in Resources and Volunteering: A Longitudinal Study of Active Engagement Among Older Europeans.

Background And Objectives: Volunteering is an important dimension of successful aging. Although prior studies have found that personal resources such as health and financial situations are associated with volunteering, there is a lack of research exploring the relationship between resource changes and volunteering. Here, we investigated whether changes in individuals' resources were associated with volunteer engagement among older Europeans.

Is Transition to Retirement Associated With Volunteering? Longitudinal Evidence from Europe.

Studies have shown that retired older adults are more likely to volunteer than their working counterparts. However, whether the transition to retirement is associated with increased volunteering frequency and whether this varies according to material and time resources of participants is unclear. We used four waves of data from the longitudinal Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, collected between 2011-2018 across 19 countries ( = 12,400 person-observations from 6200 individuals over 50).

Conditioning on the Pre-Test versus Gain Score Modelling: Revisiting the Controversy in a Multilevel Setting.

We consider estimating the effect of a treatment on a given outcome measured on subjects tested both before and after treatment assignment in observational studies. A vast literature compares the competing approaches of modelling the post-test score conditionally on the pre-test score versus modelling the difference, namely, the gain score. Our contribution lies in analyzing the merits and drawbacks of two approaches in a multilevel setting.

Non-standard family histories and wellbeing at older ages.

The life course approach emphasizes that health and wellbeing at older ages are influenced by experiences occurred in the previous stages of life. We contribute to the literature by focusing on the role of the non-standardness of family histories and argue that individuals who experienced non-standard trajectories have been exposed to social sanctions throughout their life course with negative long-term consequences on wellbeing. In our study, non-standardness of family histories is the extent an individual's family history differs from those of the others within reference groups, defined combining birth cohort, gender and country of residence.

The prevalence of grandparental childcare in Europe: a research update.

We investigate (a) how the proportion of European grandparents providing childcare changed over a period of 15 years, (b) how these proportions differ by gender and education, and (c) how countries not covered in earlier analyses fit into previously identified regional patterns of grandparental childcare in Europe. Using data from Waves 1, 2, and 8 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), our descriptive analysis provides estimates of the prevalence and intensity of grandparental childcare in 26 European countries as well as of the changes therein over time and across socio-demographically defined groups. Overall, the prevalence and intensity of grandparental childcare in Europe has remained fairly stable over time, with minor increases.

Less Is (Often) More: Number of Children and Health Among Older Adults in 24 Countries.

Objectives: Previous evidence about the impact of parenthood on health for older adults is mixed, perhaps due to variation in number of children and context. Higher numbers of children could lead to support or strain, depending on individual and country contexts. Yet, no studies currently exist that examine associations between the number of children and several health indicators among older adults across multiple global regions.

COVID-19 precautionary behaviors and vaccine acceptance among older individuals: The role of close kin.

The family plays a central role in shaping health behaviors of its members through social control and support mechanisms. We investigate whether and to what extent close kin (i.e.

A machine learning approach to determine the influence of specific health conditions on self-rated health across education groups.

Background: Self-rated health, a subjective health outcome that summarizes an individual's health conditions in one indicator, is widely used in population health studies. However, despite its demonstrated ability as a predictor of mortality, we still do not full understand the relative importance of the specific health conditions that lead respondents to answer the way they do when asked to rate their overall health. Here, education, because of its ability to identify different social strata, can be an important factor in this self-rating process.

Fertility plans in the early times of the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of occupational and financial uncertainty in Italy.

This study investigates the association between objective and subjective indicators of economic uncertainty, generated by the COVID-19 health and economic crisis, and young Italians' fertility plans during the 2020. We use unique repeated cross-sectional data, collected at different time points during the pandemic (March and October/November 2020) together with pre-COVID data (2016). The data offer a standard fertility intention question pre- and during-COVID, and also a direct question on whether pre-COVID fertility plans have been confirmed, postponed or abandoned.

Changes in Grandparental Childcare During the Pandemic and Mental Health: Evidence From England.

Objectives: Policies aiming at reducing rates of hospitalization and death from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) encouraged older people to reduce physical interactions. In England, until July 2021, provision of care for grandchildren was allowed only under very limited circumstances. Evidence also suggests that reduced face-to-face interactions took a toll on mental health during the pandemic.

Loneliness before and during the COVID-19 pandemic-are unpartnered and childless older adults at higher risk?

Unlabelled: COVID-19 mitigation efforts had the potential to exacerbate loneliness among older adults, particularly for the unpartnered or childless, yet specific studies on loneliness among these groups during the COVID-19 pandemic are lacking. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) collected before (October 2019-March 2020) and during the pandemic (June-August 2020), we examine two loneliness outcomes: (1) "have you felt lonely recently?" (both datasets) and (2) "have you felt lonelier than before the pandemic?" (2020), and examine differences by partnership and parenthood status. Before COVID-19, those who lacked one tie but had the other (unpartnered parents or partnered childless) were at highest loneliness risk.

Close kin influence COVID-19 precautionary behaviors and vaccine acceptance of older individuals.

The family plays a central role in shaping health behaviors of its members through social control and support mechanisms. We investigate whether and to what extent close kin (i.e.

Juggling Grandchild Care and Labor Force Participation: The Effect on Psychological Wellbeing of Older Women.

Although it is well-known that care responsibilities are strongly gendered also in later life, the consequences for older women of juggling work and care responsibilities are understudied. This study contributes to fill this gap by focusing on the wellbeing implications for older European women of combining work and grandchild care. The role strain and role enhancement theories guide our theoretical predictions.

What Tears Couples Apart: A Machine Learning Analysis of Union Dissolution in Germany.

This study contributes to the literature on union dissolution by adopting a machine learning (ML) approach, specifically Random Survival Forests (RSF). We used RSF to analyze data on 2,038 married or cohabiting couples who participated in the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey, and found that RSF had considerably better predictive accuracy than conventional regression models. The man's and the woman's life satisfaction and the woman's percentage of housework were the most important predictors of union dissolution; several other variables (e.

Matching on poset-based average rank for multiple treatments to compare many unbalanced groups.

In this article, we propose an original matching procedure for multiple treatment frameworks based on partially ordered set theory (poset). In our proposal, called matching on poset-based average rank for multiple treatments (MARMoT), poset theory is used to summarize individuals' confounders and the relative average rank is used to balance confounders and match individuals in different treatment groups. This approach proves to be particularly useful for balancing confounders when the number of treatments considered is high.

Effects of Pandemic on Feelings of Depression in Italy: The Role of Age, Gender, and Individual Experiences During the First Lockdown.

The restrictions to physical contacts that have been imposed in different countries to deal with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have contributed to an increase in feelings of depression on top of other negative consequences of the pandemic. This study examines the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on feelings of depression using original data collected in Italy between April 14 and 24, 2020. Quota sampling ( = 3,026) was performed to target the population of 18+ and, together with post-stratification weights, permitted obtaining a representative sample of the Italian population with respect to key sociodemographic factors.

Physically distant but socially close? Changes in non-physical intergenerational contacts at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among older people in France, Italy and Spain.

Unlabelled: Physical distancing is intended to mitigate the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. However, the impact of a decrease in face-to-face contacts on non-physical social contacts of older people remains unclear. In particular, we focus on intergenerational contacts that are especially relevant for older people's mental health.

Is There a Rejuvenating Effect of (Grand)Childcare? A Longitudinal Study on German Data.

Objectives: Provision of grandchild care has been found to be associated with a youthful subjective age. Yet, previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional and ignored the increasing proportions of older people growing old without the opportunity to become a grandparent. This study investigates the effects of childcare to grandchildren and to other children on subjective age using panel data.

Older People's Nonphysical Contacts and Depression During the COVID-19 Lockdown.

Background And Objectives: With the goal of slowing down the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, restrictions to physical contacts have been taken in many countries. We examine to what extent intergenerational and other types of nonphysical contacts have reduced the risk of increased perceived depressive feelings during the lockdown for people aged 50+.

Research Design And Methods: We implemented an online panel survey based on quota sampling in France, Italy, and Spain in April 2020, about 1 month after the start of the lockdown.

No clear association emerges between intergenerational relationships and COVID-19 fatality rates from macro-level analyses.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 originated in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019 and rapidly spread in more than 100 countries. Researchers in different fields have been working on finding explanations for the unequal impact of the virus and deaths from the associated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) across geographical areas. Demographers and other social scientists have hinted at the importance of demographic factors, such as age structure and intergenerational relationships.

Short-term reciprocity between adult children and parents: A within-person investigation of longitudinal data.

Although reciprocity of intergenerational support has been widely considered in family studies, empirical investigations utilizing panel data are still rather scarce. This study used data from four waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam), which were collected in two-year intervals between 2009 and 2016. We examined whether the frequency of received support from parents previously is associated with the frequency of provided support to parents later.