Harmonizing Data on Grandparents and Child Development in Latin America
Lia Fernald, Professor
Public Health
Closed. This professor is continuing with Fall 2024 apprentices on this project; no new apprentices needed for Spring 2025.
Around one third of young children in Latin America co-reside with a grandparent. Unlike other regions, intergenerational cohabitation has remained common even with increasing economic prosperity. Grandparents may provide additional care for children with time or financial resources, yet they may also be a burden on parents if the grandparent needs support. These benefits or burdens of grandparent coresidence may be lesser or greater depending on the parental structure in the household. Single parents may benefit more than two-parent families from additional resources, for example. Understanding why grandparent coresidence occurs can help inform the mechanisms as to why there may be influences of grandparent coresidence on child development. My overall objective is to characterize the distinct trajectories of grandparent coresidence with young children, taking into account the parental family structure, and to measure associations between grandparent coresidence trajectories and child development outcomes. Using longitudinal data from four countries of over 10,000 children age three and under at baseline and ten and under at endline, I will examine the family characteristics predicting selection into of different grandparent trajectories (continuous, separation or none) within distinct to parent trajectories (two-parent continuous, one-parent continuous, and parental separation). I will also test if coresidence with grandparents is associated with cognitive or nutritional outcomes and if these associations differ across parental trajectories. This research is relevant for examining when and with what frequency grandparents provide care for children in order to best design social programs to support grandparent caregivers. Examining child outcomes helps prioritize the situations that require the most support.
Role: Examine variables in data sets and indicate how they align across data sets.
Read questionnaires and statistical methods documents
Qualifications: Spanish reading required. Use of Excel for maintaining large spreadsheets. Knowledge of Stata or R a plus, but not required. 3-6 hours per week
Consolidate descriptions of statistical methods
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Sarah Reynolds, Staff Researcher
Hours: to be negotiated
Off-Campus Research Site: University Hall (can be remote)
Social Sciences Biological & Health Sciences