Lost support, lost skills: Children's cognitive outcomes following grandparental death

Michelle Sarah Livings; Emily Smith-Greenaway; Rachel Margolis; Ashton M Verdery

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102942

Lost support, lost skills: Children's cognitive outcomes following grandparental death

Soc Sci Res. 2023 Nov:116:102942. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102942. Epub 2023 Oct 31.

Authors

Michelle Sarah Livings¹, Emily Smith-Greenaway², Rachel Margolis³, Ashton M Verdery⁴

Affiliations

¹ Center for Research on Child & Family Wellbeing, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 286 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. Electronic address: ML3501@princeton.edu.
² Department of Sociology, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, And Sciences, University of Southern California, 851 Downey Way HSH 212, Los Angeles, CA, USA 90089. Electronic address: smithgre@usc.edu.
³ Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario, Social Science Centre Room 5306, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5C2. Electronic address: rachel.margolis@uwo.ca.
⁴ Department of Sociology and Criminology, College of the Liberal Arts, Penn State University, 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA, USA 16801. Electronic address: amv5430@psu.edu.

PMID: 37981395
DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102942

Abstract

Objective: This study examines the implications of grandparental death for cognitive skills in middle childhood.

Method: This study uses data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2479) to estimate ordinary least squares regression models of the associations between grandparental death and subsequent cognitive skills among children in middle childhood.

Results: Experiencing a grandparental death between ages 5 and 9 is associated with boys' lower reading, verbal, and math scores at age 9, with associations most notable for Black and Hispanic boys; grandparental death before age 5 has minimal influence on boys' cognitive skills at age 9. There is little indication that grandparental death adversely affects girls' cognitive skills.

Conclusion: The numerous and persistent implications of grandparental death for boys' cognitive skills merit greater recognition of grandparental death as a source of family instability, stress, and ultimately inequality in child development.

Keywords: Bereavement; Cognitive development; Grandparents; Middle childhood.

MeSH terms

Child
Child Development*
Child, Preschool
Cognition*
Death
Female
Grandparents*
Humans
Male