ABSTRACT
Objective
This study investigates how grandparental childcare support is associated with adult children’s gender, SES, and the gender of their children in China.
Background
Grandparental childcare benefits both adult children and grandchildren. However, few studies treat it as a scarce family resource that adult children strategically compete for in extended households.
Method
Drawing on data from the 2011 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), this study includes 9216 adult children nested within 3587 parents. Logit and OLS models are used to estimate the probability of receiving support and caregiving hours.
Results
Sons were more likely to receive grandparental childcare support than daughters, especially when they had male offspring. Among daughters, higher SES was associated with a higher likelihood of support, whereas the educational gradient was reversed among sons. Urban–rural comparisons further revealed more egalitarian patterns in urban families, where daughters’ SES advantage more effectively translated into increased caregiving opportunities.
Conclusion
Although gender inequality in resource allocation persists in Chinese families and extends into the third generation, SES advantage enhances daughters’ access to parental support. Two divergent patterns of grandparental childcare support for sons and daughters coexist in the patrilineal context with shifting gender norms.