According to Child Care Aware of America, the average cost of childcare for children under 5 years old in 2025 will be $13,184 per year, equivalent to college tuition. Many families who cannot afford it or cannot find vacancies at childcare facilities tend to rely on grandparents.
Madonna Harrington Meyer, a sociology professor at Syracuse University, says there are many factors that make finding suitable childcare a pressing need for many families.
First, the number of households where both parents work full-time has steadily increased over the past few decades. According to the Pew Research Center, 52% of couples with young children will be working full-time by 2025, compared to just 31% in 1975. Second, the number of single mothers and families with children with disabilities, who often struggle to find specialized care, has also increased similarly. “All of these are reasons why people are turning to grandparents for help,” Professor Meyer added.
According to a report by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the average time grandparents spend caring for their grandchildren is 200 hours per year, or about 3.8 hours per week. This unpaid childcare service provided by grandparents is estimated to be worth the equivalent of $731 billion per year.
But it's not just children and parents who benefit; grandparents themselves also improve their mental health by participating in childcare. According to research from Tilburg University ( Netherlands ), on 2,880 people with an average age of 67, childcare can act as a protective layer against cognitive decline in older adults. Memory and speech fluency tests showed that grandparents who had cared for their grandchildren performed better than those who had not.
T. TRUC (According to NPR)
Source: https://baocantho.com.vn/chi-phi-cham-care-tre-tang-cao-nhieu-gia-dinh-my-tim-ong-ba-tro-giup-a217002.html
