Grandparents have a big impact on mothers’ mental health

Having grandparents around can benefit mothers’ mental health, especially if their children are young, a new study has found.

The Finnish study, published in the journal Population Studies, analysed longitudinal data from more than 488,000 mothers born between 1945 and 1995 who had children aged 12 or younger. It found that they are less likely to experience depression if they have parents who are under age 70, employed and free of severe health issues. Depression was measured by antidepressant (AD) purchases, recorded in Finland’s prescription register.

If the mothers live within 10km of their parents, they are also less likely to be depressed than if they live farther away, the research showed. In cases where the mother is on the verge of separating from her partner, grandparental support seems to have a bigger impact on her mental health than if she has already separated.

“Among all mothers, AD use was more common among those with a parent or parent-in-law who was older, non-employed, or in poor health,” the researchers write. “Others not living close to their own parent(s) or parent(s)-in-law also showed higher AD use than other mothers, as did mothers whose own parents were not living together. These differences in mothers’ AD use by grandparents’ characteristics were somewhat larger among separating than non-separating mothers.”

Benefits greatest from mothers about to separate from their partner

Niina Metsä-Simola, a university lecturer at the University of Helsinki, and co-author of the study, said that as a result of demographic changes, children today are increasingly likely to have living grandparents. “Many studies have investigated how grandparents’ characteristics affect their probability of providing support to adult children and grandchildren,” she added. “Yet no population-level studies had examined how grandparental characteristics are associated with maternal depression.”

The biggest benefits to mothers of having support from grandparents came when they were about to separate from partners. This may be because those women have custody of their child and are more likely to need help from relatives, the researchers suggested. However, the beneficial effect of support from grandparents was greater for mothers who were still with their partner than for those who had separated.

“We had assumed that grandparental support could alleviate the adverse mental health effects of separation and single parenthood, thus leading to larger differences in mental health by grandparental characteristics after separation,” Metsä-Simola said. “We were thus somewhat surprised that differences in maternal depression by grandparental characteristics were larger before separation than after it.”

The study also found that grandparents don’t need to be retired to help their kids out. “The finding that grandparental employment is associated with lower probability of maternal depression is highly relevant from the perspective of policy initiatives that aim to prolong working lives as it suggests that grandparents’ employment does not necessarily hinder provision of support to younger generations,” Metsä-Simola said.

Even when state support is available, grandparents are important

The research supported earlier studies which found that “younger grandparents in good health are more likely to provide support and childcare,” Metsä-Simola said, adding: “Having an old and frail grandparent may even place an additional burden on mothers as they cannot expect to receive support from such grandparents, but instead need to continue providing support upwards.”

One of the reasons that the findings are significant is that Finland is a welfare state where all parents benefit from institutional support. “Even in the pro-egalitarian context of Finland, potential availability of grandparental support matters for maternal mental health, especially among the vulnerable population subgroup of separating mothers,” the researchers say.

The researchers also recommended that future studies could investigate the impact of parents’ and in-laws’ support on depression in childless women