Connecting With Shosho: Assessing the Role of Grandmothers in a Low-Income Population in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

A body of scholarship has demonstrated that grandmothers provide critical support to their adult children and grandchildren across Africa. We examine the extent to which grandmothers provide support in a low-income, urban context where grandmothers are employed and do not live in intergenerational arrangements. We (1) describe the composition of living grandparents and the type of support their adult daughters and grandchildren received from them; (2) analyze the extent to which grandmother’s employment and residence affect the odds of receiving support; and (3) examine the relationship between support from grandmothers and adult daughters’ mental health. We use three waves of data from 1181 young mothers enrolled in the JAMO project, a longitudinal study of family connectivity in Nairobi, Kenya. Logistic regression models show that grandmothers being employed and co-residing significantly increase the odds of daughters receiving support from them and that this support can protect these young mothers’ mental health.