In a recent article, Lieke Voorintholt (IAAEU and Trier University), Gerard J. van den Berg, and Adriaan R. Soetevent (both at the University of Groningen) investigate the causal effect of grandparenthood on climate change worries, using British panel data. Older individuals tend to report lower climate concerns than younger and middle-aged individuals, and European populations continue to age. Whether life transitions such as grandparenthood shift attitudes is therefore a question with direct implications for the political feasibility of long-run climate policy.

Using data from the Understanding Society survey, the authors draw on respondents aged 40-79 across two survey waves (2012-2014 and 2018-2020). To address the endogeneity of grandparental status, they employ two empirical approaches relying on different identifying assumptions: a fixed-effects model exploiting within-individual variation in becoming a grandparent over time, and an instrumental-variable approach using the random variation in the sex of the respondent's first child. As women on average have children at an earlier age than men, this affects the timing of grandparenthood.

Across both approaches, the authors find no evidence of a causal effect of grandparenthood on climate change worries. This finding suggests that the real-life transition to grandparenthood does not automatically lead people to place more weight on the welfare of future generations and motivates further research on effective strategies for engaging older generations in climate action.

The open-access paper is available online: Voorintholt, L., van den Berg, G. J., & Soetevent, A. R. (2026). For the future of our grandchildren: Grandparenthood and climate change concerns. European Economic Review.