For the future of our grandchildren : grandparenthood and climate change concerns

Concerns about offspring's life quality are often cited as a motivation for caring about climate change. This paper investigates the hypothesized causal effect of grandparenthood on climate change worries, using panel data surveys among British families. Specifically, we study whether becoming a grandparent increases these worries. We employ two different study designs to deal with endogeneity of grandparenthood. The assumptions required to identify causal effects differ and are non-nested. However, results based on the two approaches are remarkably congruent. We find no empirical support for a relationship between grandparental status and concerns about climate change.