Grandparental stress, social support, and affective well-being of migrant grandparent caregivers in urban China: an integrated model

The emergence of migrant grandparent caregivers in urban China calls for research attention to the impact on their well-being. Given the stressful nature of grandparent caregiving and changes to social support under migration, in this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of grandparental stress and social support on migrant grandparent caregivers’ affective well-being. Cross-sectional data were collected from nine kindergartens using multistage clustered sampling in Eastern China. The total sample consisted of 483 migrant Chinese grandparent caregivers (mean age = 56.54 years, 67.7% female). Structural equation modeling was used to validate the hypotheses. The results indicated that grandparental stress had a direct negative impact on positive affect (r = -0.130) and a direct positive effect on negative affect (r = 0.125). Both informal (r = 0.368) and formal social support (r = 0.126) were positively associated with positive affect, while only informal social support (r = -0.105) had a significant negative association with negative affect. Additionally, grandparent stress decreased informal social support (r = -0.414) and indirectly influenced both positive and negative affect. In turn, a lack of social support may intensify grandparental stress. The findings validate the integrated theoretical models for studying migrant grandparent caregivers in urban China. Implications for policies and interventions are also discussed.