OBJECTIVES: Grandparents have increasingly taken more active caregiving roles for grandchildren. Given their vulnerability to aging-associated health declines, it is essential to understand how grandparent caregiving, along with grandparent gender and family relationships, may influence aging processes. This study examined how grandparent caregiving status interacts with gender and family affectual solidarity to affect epigenetic aging, an indicator of healthspan and mortality risk.
METHODS: Our sample included grandparents participating in the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study (N = 492; mean age = 61.94; female = 59.96%), 18.29% of whom reported being grandparent caregivers for 6+ months. Epigenetic age was measured using the Horvath, Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and DunedinPACE epigenetic clocks. We tested for moderation by gender and family affectual solidarity, the degree of positive (and negative) sentiment between family members.
RESULTS: Linear regression found, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and BMI, associations between grandparent caregiving and DunedinPACE, indicating that more time spent caring for grandchildren is related to a faster pace of aging. Two-way interactions between grandparent caregiving and gender showed epigenetic age acceleration (higher biological age compared to chronological age) for grandfather caregivers versus non-caregiving grandfathers across multiple clocks. Three-way interactions between grandparent caregiving, gender, and family affectual solidarity indicated that caregiving grandfathers experience epigenetic age deceleration with higher family affectual solidarity compared to caregiving grandmothers. Similarly, caregiving grandfathers experience epigenetic age deceleration with higher partner affectual solidarity compared to caregiving grandmothers.
DISCUSSION: These results have implications for targeted interventions to benefit the healthy aging of grandparent caregivers.
Longevity & Aging