Positive Affect and Depressive Symptoms: What Dimensions of Grandfather Involvement Matter?

The mental health of middle-aged and older men is an understudied dimension of human development that has implications for grandfathers’ involvement in the lives of their grandchildren. Grandfather involvement is defined as the degree of engagement in the process of building and maintaining relationships with grandchildren and comprises the concepts of participation in activities, commitment, and contact frequency. Using structural equation modeling techniques, two models are tested exploring how grandfather involvement is associated with positive affect and depressive symptoms, two aspects of mental health.