No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The Changing Demography of Grandparenthood
Journal of Marriage and Family
Abstract
Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles. Mortality decline increases the time an individual can spend as a grandparent, but childlessness decreases the proportion of people who ever become grandparents, and fertility postponement delays when grandparenthood begins. This article examines changes in the length of grandparenthood at the population level and why it has changed in Canada over a 26-year period. Using the Sullivan method, years spent as a grandparent are estimated by sex for 1985 and 2011. Results show that grandparenthood is coming significantly later to Canadians, in small part due to increased childlessness and in large part to fertility postponement of respondents and their children. The average length of grandparenthood decreased among women from 24.7 to 24.3 years but increased among men from 17.0 to 18.9 years. The changing timing and length of grandparenthood have implications for multigenerational relationships and intergenerational transfers.
... Grandparents play an important role in family life as providers of financial, emotional, and practical support given population ageing and changing generational configurations from a pyramid-shape towards a 'beanpole' family type (Hank et al., 2018;Herlofson & Hagestad, 2012). This change is caused in part by rising life expectancy; it is now common for a child to grow up with living grandparents and even great grandparents (Murphy, 2011), bringing new opportunities and challenges for intergenerational family relations (Leopold & Skopek, 2015b;Margolis, 2016). Alongside demographic trends come socio-economic change: more mothers in paid work, greater labour market instability, higher rates of divorce and relationship breakdown, and cuts to public services (including formal childcare) may also lead to an increasing role for grandparents in family life (Aassve et al., 2012a;Di Gessa et al., 2016a;Herlofson & Hagestad, 2012). ...
... Skopek (2015a, 2015b), comparing data from Europe and North America, showed that the length of an individual's life as a grandparent varied considerably across countries and was closely associated with cross-national differences in the timing of childbearing (Leopold & Skopek, 2015b). Increases in the median age of becoming a grandparent were found in a US study using a microsimulation approach (Margolis & Verdery, 2019) as well as in a study using Canadian survey data (Margolis, 2016). Such findings may suggest that the number of years grandparents spend living with grandchildren is decreasing, despite continuous improvements in survival at older ages (Margolis, 2016). ...
... Increases in the median age of becoming a grandparent were found in a US study using a microsimulation approach (Margolis & Verdery, 2019) as well as in a study using Canadian survey data (Margolis, 2016). Such findings may suggest that the number of years grandparents spend living with grandchildren is decreasing, despite continuous improvements in survival at older ages (Margolis, 2016). But delays in the transition to grandparenthood due to delayed childbearing may be offset by increases in the length of healthy grandparenthood (Margolis & Wright, 2017). ...
This thematic collection seeks to reflect and push forward the current state of the art in the study of grandparenthood and grandparenting in Italy in a comparative European perspective. Starting from the demography of grandparenthood, intergenerational transfers, contacts and living proximity between grandparents, parents and children and the characteristics of such exchanges are analysed. Furthermore, the consequences of grandparenting and especially of grandchild care provision in terms of fertility behaviour and work participation and well-being are investigated. The research articles aim to shed light on the complexity of factors which shape the effects of grandparents’ availability and the behaviour and well-being of each of the three generations involved.
... First, we give extensive descriptive statistics displaying the evolution of the main demographic and socio-economic characteristics of grandparents. Second, following Margolis (2016), we analyse changes in the proportion of adults with grandchildren, with children but no grandchildren and childless from 1998 to 2016, to disentangle the extent and causes of grandparenthood delay. According to Leopold and Skopek (2015b) then we explore the median age at transition to grandparenthood, its interconnections with other life events, and its duration. ...
... Using Canadian data from 1985 to 2011, Margolis (2016) also finds a general postponement of grandparenthood status in the population, with an increase of about 10 years in the median age at grand-motherhood. Nevertheless, the delayed timing of grandparenthood does not shorten the length of life lived as grandparent in Canada, as it is offset by an increase in life expectancy. ...
... We then try to factorize the rest of the population into those who are not grandparents (G1) because they do not have children (G2), and those who are not grandparents because their children do not have children themselves (G3). This, in turn, gives us the opportunity to estimate the relative contribution to the change in the prevalence of grandparents due to an increase in respondents' childlessness, or to their children's childlessness (Margolis, 2016). ...
In this article, we explore the last two decades of changes in the demography of grandparenthood in Italy, by means of a set of measures: the proportion of men and women becoming grandparents by age and time, the age at transition to grandparenthood and its crossing with a set of life events and the length of grandparenthood. We used data from the four waves of the Survey on Family and Social Subjects carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics in 1998, 2003, 2009 and 2016. Overall, the median age at which half of the population over 35 is made up of grandparents moved forward by at least 5 years during the two observed decades. The postponement of grandparenthood is evident in middle age: between 55 and 64 the ratio of grandparents to non-grandparents decreased significantly by about 10%. Overall, among people who had ever had children, the median age at the transition to grandparenthood advanced by three years from 1998 to 2016, both for men (59 to 62) and women (54 to 57). This difference is greater than that observed for age at parenthood and equal to the advantage gained in terms of life expectancy at age 60. Thus, despite increasing life expectancy, because of the postponement of grandparenthood, the shared period of life for grandparents and grandchildren has not increased, but rather remained stable.
... Those delays implied that the typical age range at the transition to grandmotherhood went from late 40s to mid-50s among women in East Germany, and from mid-50s to early 60s among women in West Germany. Drawing on a period rather than cohort approach, Margolis (2016) found similar trends for Canada. ...
... However, as these findings were limited to a certain cohort range, they did not provide information about changes in the duration of grandparenthood. Margolis (2016) was the first to present a systematic analysis of the possible changes in the length of the grandparent phase. Notably, using the Sullivan method, she combined cross-sectional survey data for Canada on the prevalence of grandparenthood status with data from period life tables to calculate the remaining years spent in grandparenthood. ...
... These findings suggest that the compression of morbidity has outpaced the postponement of grandparenthood (Margolis and Iciaszczyk 2015). The differences between the estimates of the length of grandparenthood in Margolis (2016) and in Leopold and Skopek (2015b) highlight some of the methodological challenges involved in the estimation of multigenerational indicators. The latter use a cohort approach and base their calculations on parents only (since, logically, only parents can become biological grandparents). ...
Research on grandparenthood and the multigenerational family has been greatly expanding. However, surprisingly little is known about how the demographic fabric of multigenerational relations has been changing over time. Focusing on the grandparent-grandchild type of multigenerational relationship, the aim of this chapter is twofold. First, I review the rather sparse literature on the demography of grandparenthood, and conclude that most of what we know about grandparenthood and multigenerational family demographics applies to the North American context. Therefore, in a second part, I study the changes in the demography of grandparenthood in Europe from the middle of the 20th century until today. I then develop multigenerational indicators based on kinship models and combined with period data on fertility and mortality to assess the time trends in nine European countries. The results suggest that there have been profound changes in the demographic contexts in which grandparent-grandchild relations are experienced in Europe. However, the findings also reveal important non-linear trends and considerable heterogeneity in these relationships.
... Our findings demonstrate that grandmaternal investment is dependent on both generations' reproductive timing and total fertility in line with the demographic literature [77], directly impacting the likelihood that grandmothers are alive, present and able to help. The Agta, as a high fertility/mortality population, represent perhaps a very 'restricted' case for grandmothering, unlike what is present in many high-income populations today [78]. However, the Agta case is not representative of all hunter-gatherer groups, given the demography of these populations varies significantly [50,57,79,80]. ...
... Specifically, verbal models are less useful in these contexts because of the need to account for the dependent and non-intuitive effects of fertility and mortality. For instance, in a study of how grandparenting changed in Canada over a 26 year period, extended households became more common as survivorship increased over time, however, low fertility reduced the proportion of the population who ever became grandmothers [78]. Further, the availability of grandmothers can vary due to slight demographic changes in very similar contexts. ...
Grandmothers are often presented as key carers due to low costs and high inclusive fitness returns. Empirically, however, grandmothers are not consistently important. Understanding the factors that promote, or hinder, grandmothering is an important next step. We explore the demographic predictors of the low levels of grandmothering in Agta hunter–gatherers (78 children with 29 grandmothers). Due to generational reproductive timing, grandmothers still had dependent children until, on average 52, creating reproductive overlap. The minimal levels of grandmaternal investment after the age of 60 are explained by declining health and high mortality. This means the ‘helping window’ for grandmothering only spans 7 years. Yet grandmothers are still limited by multiple dependent grandchildren in this period, given high fertility. We suggest then that Agta grandmothering is constrained by (i) reproductive overlap and (ii) grandchildren competition. Accordingly, we tested how (i) the number of children and (ii) grandchildren associated with grandmothering using Bayesian mixed-effect models. We found moderate to strong evidence that more children/grandchildren reduced investment in each grandchild. Consequently, whether Agta grandmothers help appears dependent on demographic schedules, which vary widely both within and between populations. Future formal demographic modelling will then help shed light on the evolution of grandmothering in humans.
... These demographic changes have crucial implications for intergenerational dynamics and overlaps. While longer lifespans imply potentially longer periods of intergenerational overlap, fertility delay and reduction can offset this effect by delaying the onset of various family events, such as grandparenthood (Di Gessa, Bordone, and Arpino 2022; Leopold and Skopek 2015b;Margolis 2016;Skopek 2021;Szinovacz 1998). ...
... Grandparents are older today than in the past, and whether the years of life gained in later life are of good or bad quality is a major concern (Fries 2005;Gruenberg 2005;Kramer 1980;Manton 1982). Indeed, the health status of grandparents can strongly affect the generational overlap with grandchildren, both in terms of duration (Leopold and Skopek 2015a;Margolis 2016;Margolis and Verdery 2019) and quality (Margolis and Wright 2017). In particular, grandparents' health is crucial to understand the direction of intergenerational transfers, since it could impact whether grandparents are providers or recipients of care (Aassve, Meroni, and Pronzato 2012;Grundy 2005;Hank and Buber 2009;Igel and Szydlik 2011). ...
Background: Decreasing fertility rates and increasing lifespan affect the time grandparents and grandchildren co-exist. Any changes in the time and length of grandparenthood could alter the quality and the direction of intergenerational exchange. In Italy, a country in which grandparents constitute a fundamental resource for the provision of childcare and where families are the main source of support for individuals, studying grandparents' health evolution is crucial, especially considering the limited evidence available.
Objective: This study aims to uncover the evolution of disability-free grandparenthood at age 65 between 1998 and 2016 in Italy, analysing changes due to the longevity revolution and to grandparenthood–disability prevalence, with a focus on gender differences.
Methods: Disability-free grandparenthood is estimated for Italy for the years 1998 to 2016 and by gender using the Sullivan method. The linear integral decomposition method is implemented to assess the contribution of changes in mortality and the grandparenthood–disability prevalence on the evolution of disability-free grandparenthood over time.
Results: Between 1998 and 2016, Italian grandparents gained disability-free years of life overlapping with their grandchildren. Grandmothers gained 2.6 years (from 9.9 to 12.5 years), and grandfathers 1.8 years (from 8.9 to 10.7 years). Overall, this trend was primarily driven by improvements in health and survival. However, the postponement in the transition to grandparenthood for men slightly slowed down the trend.
Contribution: This study introduces grandparenthood into the estimation of generation overlap and provides the first evidence of a disability-free grandparenthood trend in Italy, where the health of grandparents is crucial to understanding intergenerational relationships and family dynamics.
... Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles, and one type of family relationship affected by early fertility is grandparenthood. Historically and in modern day societies, three-generation families are more common now than earlier, because children and grandchildren have higher chances of survival, and more people live long enough to see their grandchildren grow [77,78]. However, family formation patterns have also changed, as fertility declines, leading to increased childlessness; also, the postponement of marriage and childbearing affects the proportion of the population that ever-become grandparents, and the age at which grandparenthood begins for either younger or older age cohorts (See Appendix A (Tables A1-A8)). ...
... Demographic transitions of family formation are linked with the composition and transition of various family types. However, daughters of teenage mothers have been shown to be more likely to become teenage mothers at younger ages, linking teenage fertility to the family birth history [78]. According to the theory of socialisation, children born to teenage mothers have a higher chance of being teenage mothers, resulting in the inter-generational transmission of early childbearing, owing to factors such as reduced parenting, marital instability, and an environment of poor socio-economic conditions [93,94]. ...
In the 21st century, grandparenthood is a significant phenomenon in the fields of demography, gerontology, and sociology. It is mainly explored in the context of ageing, as it is poised to become one of the most significant demographic phenomena and social issues in contemporary South Africa. Therefore, this study examined the determinants associated with grandparents who are parenting as caregivers and the health challenges they are exposed to as caregivers. The National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Wave 5 dataset was utilised, and a total of 302,476 grandparents aged 25 years and older, who were reported to be primary caregivers of double orphans, were included in the analysis. Both bivariate and multivariate binary logistic regressions were performed to determine the predictors of the determinants of grandparents parenting as caregivers and their health challenges in South Africa. Estimated odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used, and the threshold for statistical significance was established at ρ < 0.05. A majority of the male and female grandparent caregivers were aged 24–34 years, were Black Africans (69.8%), had secondary education (46.9%), reported health challenges (HC) (59.7%), with 26.4% reporting headaches in the last 30 days. Logistic regression revealed that grandparent caregivers aged 55–64 years were 8.9 times more likely to report health challenges compared to those aged 25–34 years. Non-Black African grandparent caregivers were found to be 0.61 times less likely to report health challenges, compared to Black African grandparent caregivers. Those with perceived poor health status were 3.3 times more likely to report health challenges, compared to those with excellent perceived health status. Therefore, there is an urgent need to redesign health interventions to address these health burdens among grandparent caregivers and to take cognisance of providing economic and social support for these vulnerable populations.
... Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles, and one type of family relationship affected by early fertility is grandparenthood. Historically and in modernday societies, three-generation families are more common now than earlier, because children and grandchildren have higher chances of survival, and more people live long enough to see their grandchildren grow (Margolis, 2016). However, family formation patterns have also changed, as fertility declines, leading to increased childlessness; also, the postponement of marriage and childbearing affect the proportion of the population that ever-become grandparents and the age at which grandparenthood begins for either younger or older age cohorts (See Appendices 1-8) (Statistics South Africa, 2021). ...
... Demographic transitions of family formation are linked with composition and transition of various family types. However, daughters of teenage mothers have been shown to be more likely to become teenage mothers at younger ages, linking teenage fertility to family birth history (Margolis, 2016). According to the theory of socialization, children born to teenage mothers have a higher chance of being teenage mothers, resulting in inter-generational transmission of early childbearing, owing to factors such as reduced parenting, marital instability, and an environment of poor socio-economic conditions (Sooryamoorthy et al., 2016;Makiwane et al., 2017). ...
Background: In the 21st century, grandparenthood is a significant phenomenon in the fields of demography, gerontology and sociology. It is mainly explored in the context of ageing, as it is poised to become one of the most significant demographic phenomena and social issues in contemporary South Africa. Therefore, this study examined the determinants associated with grandparents who are parenting as caregivers and the health challenges they are exposed to as a caregiver. Methods: The National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Wave 5 dataset was utilized, and a total of 302 476 grandparents aged 25 years and older, who reported to be primary caregivers of double orphans, were included in the analysis. Both bivariate and multivariate binary logistics regression were performed to determine the predictors of the determinants of grandparents parenting as a caregiver and their health challenges in South Africa. Estimated odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used, and the threshold for statistical significance was established at ρ< 0.05. Results: A majority of the male and female grandparent caregivers are aged 24-34 years, were black Africans (69.8%), had secondary education (46.9%), reported health challenges (HC) (59.7%), with 26.4% reporting headaches in the last 30 days. Logistic regression revealed that grandparent caregivers aged 55-64 years were 8.9 times more likely to report health challenges as compared to those aged 25-34 years. Non-black African grandparent caregivers were found to be 0.61 times less likely to be report health challenges, compared to Black African grandparent caregivers. Those with perceived poor health status were 3.3 times more likely to report health challenges, compared to those with excellent perceived health status. Conclusion: Therefore, there is an urgent need to redesign health interventions to address these health burdens among grandparent caregivers and to take cognizance of providing economic and social support for these vulnerable populations.
... Estimates for North America are between 19 and 26 years for the years 2010-2011. The average length of grandparenthood is 24.3 years for Canadian women and 18.9 years for Canadian men (2011) (Margolis, 2016) and 25.5 years for US women and 21.5 years for US men (Margolis and Wright, 2017). Within the United States, there is great variation in the average length of grandparenthood by race/ethnicity. ...
... Grandparents in Northern Europe tend to have slightly more grandchildren than those in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe, mirroring fertility differentials within Europe. (Margolis, 2016). This was due to large decreases in mortality at older ages among men during this period. ...
This book is a sequel to Contemporary grandparenting, published in 2012 (Arber and Timonen, 2012). Both macro and micro level issues are covered, with a particular focus on gender, welfare states, economic development, and grandparental agency; this ensures that the book covers many topic areas of greatest relevance and interest. It emphasises that grandparenting takes many diverse forms and cannot be reduced to a small number of ‘types’. Grandparenting has evolved considerably, and continues to evolve, as a result of both socio-demographic and economic influences, and grandparents’ own agency. The book contains analyses of topics that have so far received relatively little attention, such as transnational grandparenting and gender differences in grandparenting practices. It is the only collection that brings together theory-driven research on grandparenting from a wide variety of cultural and welfare state contexts - including chapters on Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia - drawing broad lines of debate as well as outlining country-level analyses. The book therefore combines up-to-date empirical findings with new theorising that will be relevant to academics, researchers, students, and experts working in the realms of family and old-age policy and practice.
... Current discourse about population aging focuses on the potential added exposure to elderly care. However, increasing longevity and delayed fertility have lengthened the period of -shared lives‖ across generations, which has important consequences for the duration of time that older adults, especially women, are exposed to multiple care responsibilities (Bengtson, 2001;Leopold & Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016;Margolis & Wright, 2017). Therefore, focusing exclusively on paid work to understand older adults' WLE underestimate women's work and limits our understanding of the gendered consequences of population aging. ...
... First, grandchild care is becoming a major component of older adulthood (Hank & A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 5 Buber, 2009) by affecting retirement (Van Bavel & De Winter, 2013) and facilitating working-age mothers' participation in the labor force (Bordone et al., 2017). Moreover, increasing longevity and delayed fertility have lengthened the duration of grandparenthood (Leopold & Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016;Margolis & Verdery, 2019), hence lengthening the exposure to childcare. ...
Objectives
Amid growing concerns about the economic implications of population aging and the sustainability of older adults’ working life, unpaid family care work receives less attention despite its direct relevance to population aging. This paper systematically compares the paid and unpaid working life expectancy at age 50 to understand the overlap and trade-off between paid and unpaid work among older European adults.
Method
Using data from the Survey of Health and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with the Sullivan method, the paper presents gender differences across 17 countries in life expectancy at age 50 at various paid (employment) and unpaid (caregiving) role configurations.
Results
When work is defined to include unpaid family caregiving, women and men have similar working life expectancies at age 50, in contrast to prior research. However, its paid and unpaid components are gendered. The results also show that at age 50, women are expected to spend similar number of years providing grandchild care and ADL/IADL care and that most of these years take place after retirement.
Discussion
The results highlight that the gendered tension between paid and unpaid work persists into older adulthood and needs to be accounted for in working life expectancy measures. The results also underscore the gendered implications of population aging and unpaid work in older adulthood for retirement age policies and strategies for promoting gender equality in later life.
... The increas ing salience of ver ti cal fam ily kin ship in Western soci e ties (Fingerman et al. 2020) moti vates the need for a bet ter under stand ing of inter gen er a tional link ages between grand par ents and the fer til ity of their adult chil dren. In recent years, an emerg ing schol ar ship has high lighted the chang ing demo graph ics of grand par ent hood across peri ods (Gisser and Ediev 2019;Margolis 2016;Margolis and Wright 2017;Seltzer and Bianchi 2013;Verdery et al. 2020;Wiemers and Bianchi 2015). In par al lel, ADVANCE PUBLICATION 2 B. S. Okun and G. Stecklov a sep a rate lit er a ture has raised inter est in the mul ti ple ways that liv ing grand par ents can poten tially influ ence fam ily and fer til ity of their adult chil dren in lowfer til ity set tings (Aassve et al. 2012; Barber and Axinn 1998;Rutigliano 2020;. ...
... First, our con cep tual con tri bu tion is to draw atten tion to the per spec tive of the adult child and to how the chang ing demog ra phy of grand par ent hood affects the life course of adult chil dren in the child bear ing ages. This per spec tive com ple ments pre vi ous demo graphic research that has high lighted chang ing grand par ent hood in terms of its effects on older adults and their grandchildren (Margolis 2016). Prior research that has con sid ered the impli ca tions of the death of a grand par ent on adult chil dren has tended to focus more on psy cho log i cal impacts and phys i cal health (Umberson and Chen 1994). ...
The increasingly central role of vertical family kinship in Western societies underscores the potential value of intergenerational linkages that tie grandparents to the fertility of their adult children. Recent research has examined the changing demography of grandparenthood and the roles fulfilled by living grandparents, but the complex implications of grandparental death—a key feature of intergenerational linkages over the life course—have drawn less attention. In this article, we explore whether and how childbearing of adult women is affected by the death of grandparents—their own parent(s) or their spouse's parent(s). We develop a novel conceptual framework that presents the pathways of influence and considers the overall impact of grandparental death on childbearing of adult children. We then estimate fixed-effects models to identify causal relationships between grandparental death and childbearing, using linked micro-level census and population register data from Israel for the period 1986–2014. We find that grandparental death leads to a reduction of approximately 5 percentage points in the five-year probability of childbirth. The effects of grandparental death are negative across all parities examined and are broadly similar across grandparent's gender and kinship relation. Additional effects are identified, including how the impact of grandparental death varies with time since the previous birth as well as residential proximity prior to death. We explain how our findings regarding the effect of grandparental death offer insight into the role of living grandparents. Our results suggest that policy-makers concerned with low fertility should explore mechanisms that reinforce potential sources of support from grandparents.
... Demographic changes are altering the life course context in which individuals become parents. Because of childbearing postponement, the transition into the grandparent role has been delayed across cohorts (Leopold & Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016). Since health deteriorates with age, an increasing share of prospective grandparents may thus be in need of care rather than able to provide care by the time their children start planning to have a child of their own. ...
Previous research has highlighted the positive impact of parents on their adult children's fertility plans through childcare, but the association between parental health and fertility expectations remains unclear. Thus, this paper offers a novel perspective on the issue of family support by investigating how caregiving responsibilities toward elderly parents affect adult children’s decision to have a child. Using a long panel dataset for Australia, we examine whether adult children changed their fertility expectations after becoming care providers to their parents. To address issues of unobserved heterogeneity and selection into parenthood and caregiving, we employ generalized difference-in-differences models. Results show a 7% decrease in fertility expectations within two years of becoming a parental caregiver, with a stronger effect over time, consistent across genders and more pronounced for respondents with one child. These findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing the caregiver burden could provide an opportunity to positively influence fertility levels.
... Mittlerweile widmen sich zahlreiche Studien in der Familien-und Alternsforschung der Großelternschaft (vgl. den Überblick bei Klaus et al. 2023und Zanasi et al. 2023 (Margolis 2016). Der Rückgang der Mortalität verlängert die Zeit, die durchschnittlich in einer Großelternrolle verbracht werden kann, während ein Aufschieben von Geburten im Lebenslauf diesem Trend zuwiderlaufen kann. ...
... Grandparenthood changes over time due to various demographic, social and cultural factors reshaping intergenerational relations (Margolis, 2016). As a consequence, family practices can gradually transform, which may relate to an increase of grandparent-headed households (Glaser et al., 2018), four-generation families (Manor, 2021) as well as stepfamilies and reinterpretations of kin and family formations (Allen, Allen, Blieszner, & Roberto, 2011). ...
Some recent studies on grandparenthood have pointed to a potential conflict between grandparenthood and the ideals of the third age. Retired people are increasingly expected to live up to the ideals of active aging, and many grandparents may wish to demonstrate their agency by getting engaged in various leisure activities, which may reduce their possibilities and motivation to spend time with their grandchildren. We looked at this potential conflict from the perspective of people living in the countryside, where distances to both cultural and other services, and grandchildren, may both be long. We analyzed our interviewees' discursive constructions of their grandparenthood and independent life in the third age as well as the ways in which they negotiated the moral dilemma between the two. The data consisted of 14 telephone interviews with grandparents, aged 66-85, living relatively far from population centers. All interviewees underscored the importance of grandchildren and their willingness to spend time with them, and there were few direct references to the conflict between a committed grandparenthood and a third age lifestyle. However, the interviewees did express ideas related to maintaining certain limits in their grandparenthood to secure their own private lives. A potential conflict between a committed grandparenthood and the third age lifestyle appeared in such situations when grandparents needed to make real choices about how they spend their time, which was mediated by the geographical distances between the generations. The interviewees aimed at balancing between being devoted grandparents and maintaining independence. A familist discourse emphasizing the role of the nuclear family was commonly used to justify keeping a distance between them and the middle generation and grandchildren. The interviews echoed the third age ideals mainly in terms of independence and free time rather than consumption and leisure activities, the availability of which was limited in the countryside.
... Knowledge on the multigenerational family has expanded rapidly, in particular research on the changing demography of grandparent-grandchild relations (Arpino, Gumà, & Julià, 2017;Dykstra & Komter, 2006;Hagestad & Lang, 1986;Kemp, 2003;Leopold & Skopek, 2015a, 2015bMargolis, 2016;Margolis & Verdery, 2019;Margolis & Wright, 2017;Skopek, 2021;Skopek & Leopold, 2017;Song & Mare, 2019;Szinovacz, 1998;Uhlenberg, 1996). Bengtson's (2001) case for the "rising importance of multigenerational bonds" is based on the notion of families morphing from pyramids to beanpoles in which multiple generations share longer years of lifetime than ever before. ...
Knowledge of the demography of multigenerational family ties is limited to the 20th and 21st centuries. Exploiting crowdsourced genealogies (the FamiLinx data), our research note empirically reconstructs the changing multigenerational family from pre-industrial colonial America (1700) up to the end of the gilded age (1910) in today’s United States in comparison with contemporaneous data from selected European regions. We estimate supply of and exposure to multigenerational kin measured by the number of, and years of life shared with, parents and grandparents. Multigenerational supply and exposure increased in the US and all European regions, but changes were modest compared to the surge that followed in the 20th century. Historically, the multigenerational family was consistently stronger in the US than in all European regions yet from 1850 onwards differences diminished. Our study documents, for the first time, the substantial cross-continental differences in the demographic-historical pathways leading up to the modern multigenerational family.
... This trend has intensified due to increased population mobility, resulting in a growing number of Chinese grandparents actively participating in grandparenting. 1,2 Previous studies have shown that grandparenting significantly influences various aspects of the lives of MAOAs. These aspects include cognitive function, 3 life satisfaction, 4 feelings of loneliness, 5 and physical health. ...
Abstract
Background
In the context of the global aging challenge, an increasing number of middle-aged and older adults (MAOAs) are engaging in grandparenting. However, the effect of grandparenting on the mental health of caregivers has shown inconsistent findings. To effectively promote healthy aging, it is imperative to adopt a comprehensive perspective and employ a rigorous approach to further investigate the relationship between these two social phenomena.
Methods
The data from the Harmonized China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study were analyzed, focusing on MAOAs with at least one grandchild. Mental health assessments used the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale scale. The study employed a series of difference-in-differences (DID) models, especially complemented by propensity score matching, to evaluate the average treatment effect for the treated (ATT) on mental health of caregivers, considering covariates like personal and family characteristics. The intervention perspective includes both the provision and cessation of grandparenting.
Results
The study found that providing grandchildren care does not have a significant effect on the mental health of grandparents, in comparison to those who have never engaged in such care (ATT = −0.172, T = 0.65, p = 0.517 in the PSM-DID model). Furthermore, ceasing this care also appears to have no substantial effect on the mental health of the caregivers, relative to individuals who have consistently offered grandchildren care (ATT = 0.060, T = 0.26, p = 0.795 in the PSM-DID model). Furthermore, subsequent robustness analyses consistently supported these findings, even when considering data from different survey waves.
Conclusions
In contrast to many prior studies that have reported either positive or negative effects, our research reveals that grandparenting exerts no significant effect on the mental health of MAOAs. Consequently, health practitioners and policymakers should carefully consider the diverse cultural context when tailoring interventions and support strategies.
... On the other hand, fertility delay and reduction can counterbalance the effect of the longevity revolution on kin networks, by postponing the age of transitioning in the different family roles. One of the intergenerational relationships most affected by these processes is grandparenthood (Di Gessa et al. 2020;Leopold and Skopek 2015a;Margolis 2016;Skopek 2021;Szinovacz 1998). Adults in Italy become grandparents rarer and later in life than before, although this delay is offset by gains in longevity, which still keep the grandchildrenrand arents' life time s ent to ether stable . ...
Italy's ageing population may pose challenges to the sustainability of the country's socioeconomic and healthcare systems. This depends on the (un)healthy ageing process. The disability status of mid-to-older adults is a crucial determinant of individuals' autonomy and participation in society. Disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) is an important metric for assessing the health and disability risks of the population in a summary indicator, neat of the age structure. Demographic changes also affect intergenerational relationships and in Italy, where grandparents play a significant role in caregiving, it is crucial to study their health evolution.
This thesis aims to, first, detect the long-term trend of DFLE in Italy and to analyse the drivers of its change in terms of disability-specific mortality and dynamics of disability onset and recovery. Second, to shed light on gender, socioeconomic, and territorial inequalities in DFLE (and their intersections) and the factors driving these inequalities in terms of differences in mortality and disability risks. Third, to analyse the trend of the length of life to live as grandparents free from disability and understand how it is influenced by age-specific survival and grandparenthood-disability prevalence evolution. The thesis applies different demographic and statistical methods to different cross-sectional and longitudinal data, representative of the whole Italian population, and provides DFLE estimates, trends, inequalities, and specific applications for mid-to-older Italian men and women.
The findings show that while DFLE at mid-to-older ages has increased, it has not always progressed as favourably as life expectancy, but in the last few years when Italians experience compression of disability. The greatest contribution to DFLE evolution over time are the changes in the transition in and out of disability. There are notable differences in DFLE at older ages within the country, between genders and educational groups. Women have a life expectancy advantage, but their health disadvantage almost always counterbalances it. The disadvantage in DFLE accumulates over education and region of residence, resulting in higher educated living in northern regions having more than double DFLE than lower educated living in southern regions. Health differences are also the major contributors to educational differences in DFLE. Italian grandmothers and grandfathers are gaining years of coexistence-life-time with their grandchildren in good functional health. Women can expect to live more years as disability-free grandmothers than men, but their share of disability-free grandmothers years over total years as grandmothers is lower than that for men. The increase in disability-free grandparenthood years is primarily led by improved survival and health conditions and, for men, by the postponement of grandparenthood to older ages.
The indicators presented in this thesis offer valuable information that can be used to monitor the evolution of healthy ageing, to compare the health and mortality risks of different populations and subgroups, and to estimate how alternative social and health policy strategies may be reflected in terms of risks and health conditions of the population, and thus in the indicators.
... Individual ID was nested within mother ID as a random effect to account for individual characteristics that could influence inter-birth intervals (as each individual could experience multiple events [births]) and to account for possible shared family effects with siblings. (Margolis, 2016;Margolis & Wright, 2017;Leopold & Skopek, 2015;Chapman et al., 2017;Chapman et al., 2018) and therefore on limits to possible selection. Previous work has established that, on average, grandmothers and grandchildren in this population had less than 10 years of shared time pre-industrially, with a large increase in this time following the demographic transition (Chapman et al., 2018) -in other words, grandmothers had a greater opportunity to help over time. ...
Demographic transitions are defining events for human societies, marking shifts from natural mortality and fertility rates to the low rates seen in industrialised populations. These transitions can affect trait evolution through altering the direction and strength of selection when variance in fertility and mortality decline. One key feature of human evolution is the evolution of extended post-reproductive life through indirect fitness benefits from grandmothering. Although studies in pre- and post-transition societies have documented beneficial grandmother presence, it remains unknown whether these associations changed before, during, or after the transition. Here, we use genealogical data from 18th-20th century Finland to show grandmother-associated changes of two measures of evolutionary fitness (grandchild survival and birth rate) over the transition. We find grandmothers had greater opportunity to help as the transition progressed, but their effect on grandchild survival declined alongside general mortality rates, implying that selection on lifespan from grandmothering declined too. Whilst grandmother presence was still associated with reduced birth intervals and hence more grandchildren born post-transition, the nature of this relationship changed greatly. This suggests that though potential for intergenerational interactions increased over the demographic transition, the (hypothesised) evolutionary importance of these interactions declined, which reduced selection for extended post-reproductive lifespan.
... One consequence of extending life expectancies is that many people spend an increasing proportion of their lives as grandparents (Margolis, 2016;Margolis & Wright, 2017). At the same time, the demand for grandparent childcare in the United States has grown as a side-effect of increases in the rates of mothers' labor force participation and single parenthood, immigration, and parental incarceration and substance abuse disorders (Cherlin, 2010;Livingston & Parker, 2010;Meyer & Kandic, 2017). ...
Objective
This study investigates longitudinal associations between providing care to grandchildren and cognitive functioning. It also examines heterogeneity in these relationships.
Background
Grandchild caregiving may support older adults' cognitive functioning by providing social engagement and emotional meaning. However, studies caution that time‐intensive or custodial grandchild caregiving can take a toll on grandparents. The cognitive health implications of grandchild caregiving may thus depend on contexts including time spent providing care and living arrangements. They may also vary across sociodemographic groups and have greater effects on older adults who are more vulnerable to cognitive decline.
Method
Data came from the 1998–2016 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and represented over 11,000 US adults aged 50+. Using linear growth curve and dynamic panel models, the analysis explored relationships between level of grandchild care and cognitive functioning over time and across sociodemographic, family, work, and health characteristics.
Results
Those providing 100–199, 200–499, or 500+ h of care to grandchildren had better cognitive functioning than non‐caregivers regardless of whether they lived with grandchildren. Positive links between grandchild caregiving and cognition were stronger for lower income, non‐working, and unpartnered adults and grew with age and functional limitations.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that providing care to minor grandchildren may help support cognitive functioning as adults age. They also support the hypothesis that more vulnerable or isolated groups of older adults may benefit the most from grandchild caregiving.
... Such reactions become relevant to most persons in middle age, wherein the average age at which persons first become grandparents is 50 (American Association of Retired Persons, 2019). This represents a historical increase relative to the findings of Metropolitan Life (2011), Margolis (2016) and Leopold and Skopek (2015), due to increased longevity and the postponement of parenthood. ...
The present study explored the impact of the timeliness of first-time grandparenthood on grandparent well-being, role assumption, and grandchild relationship quality. Relying upon data gathered from 550 grandparents (M age = 63.53), the age at which persons first became grandparents was calculated and criteria for assessing the timeliness of its impact were developed. Comparisons across five age categories of timeliness as well as a three category schema suggested that while the timing of first-time grandparenthood negatively impacted adults’ emotional connection to a target grandchild, their efficacy as grandparents, their personal well-being, and their physical health, the strength and direction of such effects varied by specific grandparent outcomes. Having information regarding grandparent timeliness would be valuable in designing prospective (prior to the grandchild’s birth) support/or educational programs for such persons as well as for grandparents who are raising a grandchild at an inopportune time in their lives.
... The majority of individuals aged 50 and older in Europe, Canada, and the United States have faced the transition to grandparenthood (Glaser et al., 2013;Leopold and Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016). Such a high prevalence of grandparenthood and the important implications that such an event might have for the experience itself and for its intersection with other life events and roles call for a better understanding of the actual life transition of becoming a grandparent and the relationship between grandparental status and health. ...
A plethora of studies provide evidence of family relationships’ key role in individuals’ well-being across the entire life course and particularly at older ages. When discussing the relationship between health inequalities and family relations, the present chapter thus places a particular emphasis on grandparents and grandchildren. After briefly reviewing the link between adult parent–child relationship qualities and health inequalities (Section 2), we then take the grandparents’ perspective (Section 3) to discuss, first, the effects of grandparenthood (that is, the transition into a new social and family role in later life and the status of being a grandparent) and, second, the effects of active grandparenting (such as the provision of grandchild care) on grandparents’ well-being. We then complement the grandparents’ perspective by assessing research on health inequalities in grandchildren (Section 4). The chapter concludes with policy recommendations and perspectives for future research (Section 5).
... Future demographic trends may strongly a ect the grandparental role, given a series of important demographic changes that occurred in recent decades and that will continue in the coming ones. Falling and delayed fertility play a pivotal role in shaping the grandparenthood life phases (Arpino et al. 2018b;Margolis 2016), as, for example, it is expected that grandparents will have fewer grandchildren at older ages compared to the present cohorts of grandparents. A growing proportion of older people will not experience the grandparental role, since childlessness is increasing. ...
The Oxford International Handbook of Family Policy has two main aims: to identify key developments globally in regard to the forms and modalities of relevant policies, and to take a critical look at the developments regarding those policies. The overall goal is to uncover the extent to which concerns about the family and the role and practices of parents are mobilizing public policy and related agency in different parts of the world. The Handbook draws mainly from research carried out for UNICEF in 2014 and covers nine countries: Belarus, Chile, China, Croatia, England, Jamaica, Philippines, South Africa, and Sweden. Analysis reveals a strong trend cross-nationally toward providing a range of resources (typically termed “support”) to improve familial functioning and increase parents’ information and knowledge, resources, and competence for childrearing. The measures are not uniform, however. Parenting support frequently sits alongside family support policy, but it can also be a stand-alone policy in a setting where there is no developed family policy. In some national settings the growth of family and/or parenting support involves the introduction of new policies and provisions; in others it involves a reorientation or reframing of existing policies. In a further clarification, one has to distinguish between the high-income countries where policy is very well developed and where parenting support represents a specialization of existing policy and the low- and middle-income regions of the world where family support and parenting support are expected to achieve a more generic set of outcomes and where they are much less specific in concrete policy terms.
... In turn, we expect that the associated well-being would also become more evenly distributed. Second, our findings show that grandparental childcare could indeed serve as a relief valve for parents in the next couple of decades, as health improvement in older ages will prolong healthy grandparenthood, while fertility decline will decrease the per-capita load on grandparents (Margolis, 2016). In effect, this would create a peculiar form of a "demographic dividend," where a large number of healthier grandparents could meaningfully contribute to childcare effort. ...
This study aims to evaluate the impact of demographic change on long-term, macro-level childcare and adult care transfers, accounting for the associated well-being effects of informal caregiving. We measure the impact of demographic change on non-monetary care exchanged between different groups by estimating matrices of time transfers by age and sex, and weighting the time flows by self-reported indicators of well-being, for activities related to childcare and adult care. The analysis employs cross-sectional data from the American Time Use Survey 2011–2013, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Disability, and Use of Time Module 2013 to produce the estimates of well-being associated with the two forms of care and their future projections. Both men and women experience more positive feelings when caring for children than when caring for adults. As a whole, caregiving is an overwhelmingly more positive experience than it is negative across both genders and care types. Yet women often report more tiredness and stress than men when providing childcare, while also experiencing more pain while performing adult care, as compared to childcare activities. Women of reproductive ages spend double the amount of care time associated with negative feelings, relative to men, most of which is spent on early childcare. We project a progressively widening gender gap in terms of positive feelings related to care in the coming decades. Future reductions in absolute caregiver well-being influenced by demographic changes at the population level may reduce workforce participation, productivity, and adversely impact psycho-physical condition of caregivers, if not offset by targeted policies.
... 7 number of relatives who could be called upon when needed, since kinship ties act as latent ones that are often among the first to be activated for financial or functional support (Daw, Verdery, and Margolis 2016). Moreover, the length of overlap between kin represents the duration of intergenerational relationships-the period in which members of different generations are alive and during which intergenerational transfers can occur (Margolis 2016;Margolis and Verdery 2019;Margolis and Wright 2017;Song and Mare 2019). These dynamics of kin supply and generational overlap constitute an important expression of kinship inequality. ...
Kinship relations play a crucial role in structuring populations and shaping individual outcomes. Differences in kinship among individuals, cohorts, and subpopulations are one important aspect of these structures. Demography and related disciplines have proposed sophisticated approaches to study kinship in recent years. We argue that the development of a demography of kinship that centers on these processes will help advance the field of demography as a whole. Here, we review four key substantive areas of kinship research in demography: (1) kin supply and intergenerational transfers; (2) demographic change; (3) kin loss; and (4) social stratification. For each area, we identify important gaps in the literature and avenues for future research. We then review available methods and data sources to advance each of these areas, and conclude with an agenda to foster the study of the demography of kinship in general and kinship inequalities specifically.
... Less research has taken a multigenerational perspective. A recent and rapidly increasing trend in the literature has been examining the prevalence and timing of grandparenthood over the life course (Chapman, Pettay, Lahdenperä, & Virpi, 2018;Leopold and Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016;Skopek and Leopold, 2017). A cross-country comparison of contemporary grandparenthood in the United States and 24 European countries has been provided by Leopold and Skopek (2015). ...
We studied to what extent family lines die out over the course of 122 years based on Swedish population-level data. Our data included demographic and socioeconomic information for four generations in the Skellefteå region of northern Sweden from 1885–2007. The first generation in our sample consisted of men and women born between 1885 and 1899 (N=5,850), and we observed their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We found that 48% of the first generation did not have any living descendants (great-grandchildren) by 2007. The risk of a family line dying out within the four-generational framework was highest among those who had relatively low fertility in the first generation. Mortality during reproductive years was also a leading reason why individuals in the first generation ended up with a greater risk of not leaving descendants. We identified socioeconomic differences: both the highest-status and the lowest-status occupational groups saw an increased risk of not leaving any descendants. Almost all lineages that made it to the third generation also made it to the fourth generation.
... Compared to parental investment, the costs of grandparental investment tend to be lower, particularly for post-reproductive adults, and the benefits of grandparental investment in terms of inclusive fitness are predicted to outweigh the costs [2][3][4][5]. In recent decades, we have witnessed increased opportunities for grandparental investment due to improved health and increased life expectancy, resulting in longer shared lifespans between grandparents and grandchildren [6,7]. Moreover, because of declining fertility rates in several contemporary high-income post-industrial countries, grandparents currently have fewer grandchildren, meaning that grandparents can potentially invest more in a specific grandchild because of the lower number of alternative investment options [8,9]. ...
Evolutionary theory predicts a downward flow of investment from older to younger generations, representing individual efforts to maximize inclusive fitness. Maternal grandparents and maternal grandmothers (MGMs) in particular consistently show the highest levels of investment (e.g. time, care and resources) in their grandchildren. Grandparental investment overall may depend on social and environmental conditions that affect the development of children and modify the benefits and costs of investment. Currently, the responses of grandparents to adverse early life experiences (AELEs) in their grandchildren are assessed from a perspective of increased investment to meet increased need. Here, we formulate an alternative prediction that AELEs may be associated with reduced grandparental investment, as they can reduce the reproductive value of the grandchildren. Moreover, we predicted that paternal grandparents react more strongly to AELEs compared to maternal grandparents because maternal kin should expend extra effort to invest in their descendants. Using population-based survey data for English and Welsh adolescents, we found evidence that the investment of maternal grandparents (MGMs in particular) in their grandchildren was unrelated to the grandchildren's AELEs, while paternal grandparents invested less in grandchildren who had experienced more AELEs. These findings seemed robust to measurement errors in AELEs and confounding due to omitted shared causes.
... Konkrete Form und Intensität familialer intergenerationeller Unterstützung werden von verschiedenen Einflussfaktoren mitbestimmt, wobei neben kulturell-kontextuellen Einflüssen auch familiale Verhältnisse (Zahl an und Wohnentfernung zwischen Familienmitgliedern, Hilfebedarf, wirtschaftliche Ressourcen usw.) relevant sind. 15Eine erhöhte Lebenserwartung und eine reduzierte Kinderzahl haben zu einer ‚Vertikalisierung' familial-verwandtschaftlicher Strukturen beigetragen(Margolis 2016), mit der Folge, dass heute nicht selten die Zahl an Großeltern die Zahl an Enkelkindern übersteigt. Gleichzeitig haben erhöhte Kinderlosigkeit und verzögerte Familiengründung in der Schweiz und anderen europäischen Ländern dazu beigetragen, dass bei jüngeren Generationen der Anteil an Großeltern an der Altersbevölkerung sank und sich das Alter beim Übergang zu Großelternschaft erhöhte; zwei Prozesse, die in den nächsten Jahrzehnten weiter an Bedeutung gewinnen dürften. ...
In diesem Studiendossier werden zentrale Konzepte, Theorieansätze und Beobachtungen zu Generationenbeziehungen in modernen Gesellschaften vorgestellt und diskutiert. Das Dossier ist dabei zweistufig aufgebaut: In einer ersten Stufe werden integrative Einstiegstexte zu wichtigen Themen und Aspekten familialer wie außerfamilialer Generationenfragen angeführt. In einer zweiten Stufe behandeln Vertiefungstexte ausgewählte Aspekte ausführlicher.
Aus dem Inhalt
Begriffsgeschichte, Generationenetiketten und Basisdefinitionen
Unterschiedliche Generationenkonzepte
Formen von Generationenbeziehungen: Konflikt, Solidarität, Segregation und Ambivalenz
Familiale Generationenbeziehungen
Sozio-demografischer Wandel familialer Generationenverhältnisse
Intergenerationelles Zusammenwohnen – Feststellungen
Familiale Generationenbeziehungen in verschiedenen Lebensphasen
Gesellschaftliche Generationenverhältnisse und Generationenbeziehungen
Generationendiskurse und Generationenstereotype– zentrale Feststellungen
Intergenerationelle Kontakte im außerfamilialen Alltag
Generationenwandel in der Arbeitswelt und Generationenmanagement
Generationenwohnen – generationengemischte Wohnprojekte
Generationenprojekte – Anmerkungen zu einem aktuellen Handlungsfeld
Generationengerechtigkeit und Generationenbilanz
Generationenpolitik(en)
Vertiefungstexte
Herleitung des pädagogischen Generationenbegriffs
Zusammenfassende Darstellung von Karl Mannheim 'Das Problem der Generationen'
Ist der sogenannte Generationenvertrag ein Vertrag im Rechtssinne?
Generationenkonflikte – Konflikttypen
Sozialer Austausch und (intergenerationelle) Solidarität – eine theoretische Klärung
Familiale Generationenbeziehungen in Europa - sozialhistorische Anmerkungen
Generationensolidarität - gesetzliche Vorgaben in der Schweiz
Intergenerationelle familiale Unterstützung 50+ – Theoretische Modell und Feststellungen
Alters- und Generationenstereotype –Auswirkungen auf intergenerationelle Kommunikation
Altersstrukturen in Wirtschaft und Unternehmen – einige Anmerkungen
Literaturverzeichnis
... Als Folge der genannten soziodemogra schen Trends ist demgegenüber zu erwarten, dass die Bedeutung der Grosselternschaft und der damit verbundenen Betreuungskapazitäten zunimmt. Schliesslich wachsen Kinder immer häu ger mit lebenden Grosseltern -und sogar Urgrosseltern -auf als früher (Leopold und Skopek 2015;Margolis 2016). ...
Informelle Betreuungsleistungen durch Angehörige unterschiedlicher familialer Generationen nehmen einen zentralen Stellenwert bei der Sicherstellung des Wohlergehens des Einzelnen ein. Im Zuge des Ausbaus familienpolitischer Arrangements in den Ländern Europas während der letzten Jahrzehnte hat sich die Kompetenz bei der Sicherstellung der Betreuung jedoch immer mehr in Richtung des Wohlfahrtsstaats verlagert. Es stellt sich die Frage, wie Familien auf die veränderten Rahmenbedingungen reagieren und was dies für die Organisation intergenerationaler Betreuungsarrangements bedeutet. Kinderbetreuungsleistungen durch Grosseltern sowie die zeitliche Unterstützung betreuungsbedürftiger Eltern durch ihre erwachsenen Kinder stellen die beiden wichtigsten und verbreitetsten Formen der intergenerationalen Betreuung dar. Die vorliegende Masterarbeit nimmt diese beiden Unterstützungsformen in den Blick und verfolgt dabei die Frage, welche Faktoren das Auftreten regelmässiger intergenerationaler Betreuungsleistungen bedingen. Ausgehend von der Theorie der intergenerationalen Solidarität werden sowohl Bestimmungsgründe der Mikro-Ebene als auch der Makro-Ebene zur Erklärung miteinbezogen. Die Abbildung der kontextuellen Rahmenbedingungen erfolgt anhand spezifischer familienpolitischer Massnahmen sowie anhand kultureller Faktoren in Form vorherrschender Normen und Rollenerwartungen. Anders als bei früheren Untersuchungen werden nicht bloss nationale, sondern auch regionale Kontexte berücksichtigt. Die intergenerationalen Betreuungsleistungen werden mit komparativen Daten des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) anhand deskriptiver Analysen und logistischer Mehrebenenmodelle empirisch untersucht. Die Verbreitung informeller Betreuungsleistungen durch Familienangehörige unterscheidet sich sowohl zwischen Ländern als auch innerhalb dieser Länder massgeblich. Es stellt sich heraus, dass beide Unterstützungsformen primär durch individuelle Bedarfslagen und Handlungsoptionen bedingt sind. Demgegenüber prägen die kontextuellen Rahmenbedingungen das Auftreten intergenerationaler Betreuung nur geringfügig. Die Befunde verweisen auf ein komplexes und vielschichtiges Zusammenwirken zwischen kulturellen Normen und familienpolitischen Massnahmen. Eine Schlussbetrachtung diskutiert die Implikationen der Befundlage, widmet sich kritisch dem methodischen Vorgehen und identifiziert diverse Anknüpfungspunkte für zukünftige Untersuchungen.
... As people are now generally living longer and healthier lives, older adults have been increasingly involved in caring for grandchildren (i.e., grandparenting) as either secondary or primary caregivers (Margolis, 2016;Silverstein and Giarrusso, 2010). This phenomenon is particularly prevalent in China. ...
Research on grandparenting (i.e., caring for grandchildren) and mental health in Asian contexts has been limited, despite the rapid growth of older adults who take care of grandchildren. This study aims to investigate how grandparenting influences depressive symptoms. Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011–2015, N = 4354), we conducted fixed effects regression models to examine the association between various types of grandparenting and depressive symptoms among older adults between the ages of 45 and 80. The results show that for grandparents, providing care to their grandchildren in skipped-generation households (i.e., grandparent-grandchildren families without adult children) is associated with a lower level of depressive symptoms, after controlling for socioeconomic status, health behaviors, social support, and basic demographic characteristics. Other types of care (i.e., multigenerational household grandparenting, and part-time and full-time noncoresident grandparenting) are not significantly linked to caregiving grandparents’ depressive symptoms. Overall, our findings suggest that sociocultural contexts need to be considered in explaining the different mental health implications of grandparenting.
... For this study, only people who were not childless were considered, and we restricted the sample to those who were between 45 and 75 years old at the baseline wave in 2011 (wave 1) and who were followed up successfully until 2015 (wave 4). It should also be noted that the lower bound of 45 is lower compared to other studies on grandparenting in Western societies, where the transition to grandparenthood is often experienced at higher ages-55 to 60 (Ates et al., 2021;Leopold & Skopek, 2015;Margolis, 2016;Zhang et al., 2020). We used age 75 as the cut-off point because the average Chinese life expectancy was 75.24 in 2010, 1 and among individuals older than 75, provision of care becomes unlikely. ...
This study examines the influence of grandparenthood and grandparental childcare on loneliness among Chinese older adults. Using longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of 9240 individuals from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we applied logistic regression to examine the relationship between various grandparental statuses and loneliness with a focus on gender. The grandparental role is a protective factor for loneliness. Providing care to grandchildren was associated with a lower likelihood of feeling lonely for both genders. Among grandmothers, the benefit of providing childcare is less when it is occasional. Among grandfathers, the benefit is less when it is regular and intensive. Regarding transitions in grandparental status, gender differences were only observed among those who recently entered the caregiving role. Given the increasing reliance on grandparents for childcare in China, this engagement in active aging is beneficial for older adults in reducing loneliness.
... In view of current population ageing in many countries, previous research has shown that the majority of people aged 50 and older are facing or have faced the transition to grandparenthood, which plays a crucial role in later life [1][2][3]. It is not uncommon for grandparents to become caregivers for their grandchildren, especially in societies with a family-oriented culture, such as in Chinese societies [4]. ...
Background
It is common for older people to become grandparents in later life. However, the impacts of grandparenting on their health and well-being remain ambiguous, especially in Chinese society, where the family is in the core of culture. The current study explored the relationship between grandparenthood and Chinese older people’s health and psychological well-being in Hong Kong.
Methods
Cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of 1208 Hong Kong Chinese older people aged 55 and above through a telephone survey conducted in 2019. Participants were grouped into three categories: current grandparents ( n = 507), grandparents-to-be ( n = 275), and grandparents-not-to-be ( n = 426). Multivariate linear regressions were performed to examine the relationship between grandparenting status and health and well-being outcomes, including self-rated physical health, mental health, resilience, and happiness. The potential moderating roles of older adults’ demographic characteristics, including age, sex, education, marital status, financial status, were also examined.
Results
Bivariate analyses suggested statistically significant differences between health and well-being across the three groups of participants. Regression models showed that, compared with grandparents-not-to-be, being a current grandparent was associated with a significantly higher happiness level. Being a future grandparent was associated with significantly higher levels of happiness, resilience, and self-rated physical health. Moderating analyses showed that age, marital status, and educational level could moderate the relationship between grandparent status and resilience and self-rated mental health.
Conclusions
The current study offers preliminary insights into the significant relationship between grandparenthood and older adults’ health and well-being. It calls for future studies to further explore the mechanisms between grandparenthood and the healthy ageing of different subgroups of older adults.
... The Sullivan method is commonly used to calculate Healthy Life Expectancy, i.e., the number of years that people are expected to live in a healthy state (Crimmins and Saito 2001). We build on work by other demographers that have applied the Sullivan method to estimate life expectancy in various states, for example, the number of years people are expected to be in a happy state (Yang 2008), and the number of years older adults are expected to be grandparents (Margolis 2016), healthy grandparents (Margolis and Wright 2017), or in the labor force (Loichinger and Weber 2016). Similar to Healthy Life Expectancy, CareLE presents the burden of care in a given year within a population, adjusted for mortality levels and age structure, and articulated as the number of remaining years at a given age that an individual is expected to live as a caregiver (Jagger et al. 1999). ...
Amid growing concern regarding the potential added burden of care due to population aging, we have very little understanding of what is the burden of care in aging populations. To answer this question, we introduce a novel metric that encompasses demographic complexity and social context to summarize unpaid family care work provided to children, elderly, and other family members across the life cycle at a population level. The measure (Care Life Expectancy), an application of the Sullivan method, estimates the number of years and proportion of adult life that people spend in an unpaid caregiving role. We demonstrate the value of the metric by using it to describe gender differences in unpaid care work in 23 European aging countries. We find that at age 15, women and men are expected to be in an unpaid caregiving role for over half of their remaining life. For women in most of the countries, over half of those years will involve high-level caregiving for a family member. We also find that men lag in caregiving across most countries, even when using the lowest threshold of caregiving. As we show here, demographic techniques can be used to enhance our understanding of the gendered implications of population aging, particularly as they relate to policy research and public debate.
... Továbbá nemcsak a várható élettartam növekszik, hanem a fiatal generációk gyermekvállalási kora is, így egyáltalán nem biztos, hogy a nagyszülői életszakasz végül növekedni fog az életpályán, hiszen az idősek egyre később válnak nagyszülővé. Ezt támasztja alá egy kanadai vizsgálat, (Margolis, 2016) amely arra az eredményre jutott, hogy egy 1985-ben, illetve egy 2011-ben 20 éves nő várható nagyszülői életpályája között, annak a hosszát tekintve nincs említhető különbség. Más a helyzet a férfiaknál, ugyanis az ő várható élettartamuk jelentősebben növekedett, mint a nőké, és nagyobb mértékben, mint amennyire a gyermekvállalási kor kitolódott. ...
A tanulmány az idősek egyik fontos szerepével, a nagyszülőséggel foglalko-zik, ezen belül is a nagyszülők unokákra irányuló gondozási tevékenységével. Miközben a nagyszülőség és a nagyszülői transzferek az idősödéssel foglalkozó nemzetközi szakirodalom meghatározó részét képezik, addig a magyar szocio-lógia és demográfia kutatásaiban mostanáig nagyon kis szerepet kaptak. Kuta-tásunkban egyrészt időbeli trendek, másrészt annak bemutatására törekszünk, hogy milyen ismérvek határozzák meg a nagyszülői támogatás gyakoriságát a nagyszülők és az unokák családja szemszögéből. Elemzésünk alapját az Életünk fordulópontjai című adatfelvétel 2004 és 2016 között lekérdezett hullámai adják. Ez alapján a nagyszülők gondozási tevékenységének kiterjedtségében mind a támogatást adók, mind a kapók oldalán jelentős társadalmi különbségeket találunk. Ez már abban is jelentkezik, hogy a társadalmi hierarchia különböző pontjain élő gyermekes családok eltérő nagyságú potenciális nagyszülői körrel rendelkeznek. Az alacsonyabb végzettségű "középső generációk" szüleinek ha-landósági mutatói kedvezőtlenebbek, mint a társadalmi hierarchia magasabb fokán élőké, így az, hogy ők kevésbé számíthatnak a nagyszülői segítségre, az-zal is magyarázható, hogy sokuknál már nem élnek a nagyszülők. A nagyszü-lői támogatás kiterjedtsége az unokák családjainak típusai szerint is különbö-zik. A kétváltozós elemzések azt mutatják, hogy ha csak a háztartások közötti transzfereket nézzük, akkor az intakt családok több nagyszülői segítségre szá-míthatnak, mint a mozaikcsaládok vagy a gyermeküket egyedül nevelő szülők. Ugyanakkor a többváltozós elemzések azt jelzik, hogy a családtípusok szerinti
... In research on aging, we recognize that decreasing fertility -which implies increasing (grand)childlessness (Margolis, 2016) -and increasing geographical mobility -that brings together a higher likelihood of not living close to the (grand)children -generate a growing proportion of older adults who cannot experience provision of care to grandchildren. Therefore, it is important to account for childcare provided to other children. ...
Objectives:
Provision of grandchild care has been found to be associated with a youthful subjective age. Yet, previous studies on this topic were cross-sectional and ignored the increasing proportions of older people growing old without the opportunity to become a grandparent. This study investigates the effects of childcare to grandchildren and to other children on subjective age using panel data.
Methods:
We exploit the longitudinal nature of data from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) to examine the association between grandparental childcare and care to other children with subjective age, using fixed-effects regression analyses on a sample of 50-85 years old individuals (men: N=11,151; n=3,984; women: N=10,687; n=3,746, where N is the number of observations and n is the number of individuals).
Results:
The results from cross-sectional analyses show a "rejuvenating effect" of provision of both types of childcare in later life, especially for women. However, longitudinal analyses find very small and statistically insignificant effects.
Discussion:
We show for the first time that both grandchild care and childcare outside the grandparent-grandchild relationship are associated with a youthful subjective age for older people. However, these associations are likely due to selection effects, i.e. unobserved characteristics of people that make them more likely to engage in childcare and are also associated with subjective age. Our results warn against causal interpretation of associations found in previous studies, but also open up new research questions on the role played by childcare other than to grandchildren.
... While many household projections exist and have looked at the composition of the households, few 16. https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2018/nov/20/revealedone-in-four-europeans-vote-populist (Margolis, 2016). This dimension could be studied along cohort lines as shown in Figure VI. ...
The addition of dimensions beyond age and sex in multistate population projections has two major objectives: first, to increase the accuracy of the projected population by capturing the heterogeneity present in the population that could affect the overall system; secondly, and more importantly, to increase the level of information provided by the projections. This article reviews the main dimensions that have been projected in the past, emphasizing global projections of educational attainment, which have been used largely in modeling exercises outside of the demographic realm. Furthermore, we propose some other dimensions that could be projected in a multistate fashion, possibly for most countries.
Objectives
Grandparents caring for grandchildren (i.e., grandparenting) is a key aspect of intergenerational family dynamics. While extensive research has documented the health implications of grandparenting, relatively few studies have explored its association with social well-being. Grandparenting can either promote or constrain grandparents’ social participation, depending on caregiving intensity and intergenerational living arrangements. These associations may also vary by gender due to gendered social norms and differences in opportunities for social networking. This study investigates the longitudinal association between grandparenting and social participation among grandparents and examines how this association differs by gender.
Methods
Data are drawn from the 2011, 2013, and 2018 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (N = 8,907, aged 45-80). We use fixed-effects Poisson regression models to examine the association between different types of grandparenting and the number of social participation activities of grandparents. Subgroup analyses are conducted by grandparents’ gender.
Results
In fixed-effects regression models adjusting for time-varying covariates, we find that nonintensive noncoresident grandparenting, intensive noncoresident grandparenting, and skipped-generation grandparenting are associated with increased social participation among grandparents compared to no grandparenting. However, no significant difference in social participation is observed between three-generation grandparenting and no grandparenting groups. Grandfathers show higher levels of social participation when engaging in nonintensive or intensive noncoresident grandparenting, whereas grandmothers experience increased social participation primarily with nonintensive noncoresident grandparenting.
Discussion
Overall, grandparenting promotes rather than hinders social participation among grandparents. This study highlights the role of intergenerational family relationships in facilitating older adults’ social engagement in later life.
The relationship between a parent and child is one of the most enduring relationships over the life course. Older parents may rely on their adult children for support as they age. We leverage data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998–2018) to assess the dynamics of family exchanges by examining multiple types of parent exchanges and later child behavior in parent-child dyads at the onset of a parent’s health limitations. Using logistic regression models, we find overall support for reciprocity, as adult children are more likely to help parents who helped them. We find that co-residence and financial transfers, but not grandchild care and being in the will, are associated with reciprocity, but patterns vary by cohort. More recent cohorts did not apply reciprocity to co-residence or financial transfers. This study highlights the importance of tracking change across time in patterns of intergenerational exchange.
Delayed marriage and childbirth often result in individuals becoming grandparents in middle and older age, coinciding with significant physical transitions. This study examines the relationship between the intensity of grandparental childcare, measured in terms of time-commitment over the last year, and relative handgrip strength among South Korea adults aged 45–84. Data from 3,742 participants with grandchildren were analyzed using the 2008–2010 waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging. After applying propensity score matching, a final sample of 286 participants was analyzed with multivariate logistic regression model. Results showed that grandparents who provided childcare for an average of less than 40 h per week (Odds Ratio [OR] = 3.62) were more likely to have lower handgrip strength compared to those without caregiving experience. Additionally, those over the age of 65 showed a similar trend (OR = 2.76). Conversely, grandparents with positive self-rated health were less likely to exhibit lower handgrip strength than those rating their health as moderate (OR = 0.28). Grandparents who provided care for more than half the year were also less likely to have lower handgrip strength than those who provided less frequent care (OR = 0.26). This study highlights grandparental childcare as both a vital family support mechanism and a factor influencing physical health. Findings on caregiving intensity, particularly the role of moderate weekly childcare hours and longer terms involvement, underscore the importance of aligning caregiving commitments with grandparents’ health perceptions and capacities. Developing guidelines for optimal childcare duration and recommending physical activities tailored to support grandparents’ well-being would further promote healthy aging within a family-centered caregiving system.
Originally developed for estimating healthy life expectancy, the traditional Sullivan method continues to be a popular tool for obtaining point-in-time estimates of the population impacts of a wide range of health and social conditions. However, except in rare data-intensive cases, the method is subject to stringent stationarity assumptions, which often do not align with real-world conditions and restrict its resulting estimates and applications. In this research note, we present an expansion of the original method to apply within a population projection framework. The Sullivan method projection framework produces estimates that offer new insights about future trends in population health and social arrangements under various demographic and epidemiologic scenarios, such as the percentage of life years that population members can expect to spend with a condition of interest in a time interval under different assumptions. We demonstrate the utility of this framework using the case of long COVID, illustrating both its operation and potential to reveal insights about emergent population health challenges under various theoretically informed scenarios. The traditional Sullivan method provides a summary measure of the present, while its incorporation into a projection framework enables preparation for a variety of potential futures.
Introduction: Being engaged in multiple roles can affect a person’s health and well-being and the middle-aged people are usually exposed to this situation more than other age groups. Most of the western studies that have looked at this issue with a demographic lens have introduced middle age as a situation of being caught or sandwiched between the needs of two generations (children and parents). On the other hand, increasing women's participation in paid work means that more middle-aged women are faced with a conflict between their work and family responsibilities, a phenomenon often characterized by the term "double burden" or "second shift" (Bratberg et al., 2002; Hochschild & Machung, 2012). According to the demographic changes of the family in recent years, living arrangements in mid-life have become more complex and heterogeneous (Demey et al., 2011) so that some researchers have used the term "cluttered nest" to describe this period of life, which is in contrast to the “empty nest” stage, that is, when all children leave the parental home (Lingren & Decker, 1992). The available data in Iran showed that the age transition of population has entered the middle-age phase since 2015 (the population aged 30-64) and will remain in this phase for several decades. It is predicted that the share of middle-aged people in Iran will reach more than 50% between 2026 and 2031 (Abassi Shavazi and Sadeghi, 2017: 46). This research aimed to expand the information about the role behaviors of this group by exploring the pattern of multiplicity of roles and its relationship with some of their social and demographic characteristics in the context of the urban society of Iran. The paper tried to answer the following questions: 1) What proportion of middle-aged women and men participate in multiple roles? 2) How does the pattern of mid-life multiple roles change based on people’s socio-demographic characteristics?
Materials & Methods: Using the data from the latest Time Use Survey of Iran, this article examined the prevalence of occupancy and intensity of multiple roles, namely paid work, domestic work, and parenting, as well as the socio-demographic characteristics related to it. The statistical population of this survey included all people aged 15 and older living in urban households across the country and the data included all the daily activities of individuals, as well as demographic, economic and social variables, at the individual and household levels. The impacts of socio-demographic variables on people’s intersectionality of roles were assessed using the Poisson regression in the STATA statistical package (version 17). The dependent variable was defined as the number of intense roles, which ranged from zero to three roles. The independent variables included gender, age group, marital status, education, and household size.
Discussion of Results & Conclusion: The findings showed that (1) multiple roles were more common in the middle age than in other age periods; (2) multiple roles were more prevalnent in men due to the low employment of women; (3) women were more involved in intense multiple roles than men and this pattern was due to the large amount of time that women spent on domestic activities. The results of Poisson regression analysis revealed that the household size reduced the number of intense roles for men and women. This situation indicated a wider division of labor in large households, which alleviated participation in intense multiple roles, especially for women. On the flip side of the coin, the findings showed that middle-aged people in smaller households faced more intense roles and therefore needed interventions to reduce this potentially traumatic experience. With increasing age, the number of women’s intense roles increased. This is in line with the hypothesis of role density in late mid-life and near retirement age (Patterson & Margolis, 2019). Married women were more likely to be engaged in intense roles than their widowed or divorced counterparts and college education reduced the number of intense roles for men, but a similar effect was associated with a lower confidence interval for women. Thus, midlife could be a difficult time for married women, who had multiple responsibilities, while being a wife and a housewife. Meanwhile, their physical abilities decreased with age, making this period stressful and unfavorable. In fact, the important finding of this article was the noticeable difference in the pattern of experiencing intense roles between men and women, which showed that the tasks related to the domestic role alone put a heavy burden on the shoulders of middle-aged women living in the urban areas of Iran so that its prevalence was more than 4 times that of the men’s heavy occupational role. Our results highlighted the need for investigating the impact of multiple-role occupancy on the health and well-being of middle-aged people at the national level and designing
Can society benefit from an aging population? The perception that older people are sick, dependent and overconsuming public services is debunked. A quarter or more of the population are people in later life who are living active lives for longer and who continue to develop as individuals. A minority of people may be dependent but even they tend to stay autonomous for longer. The productive contributions made by people in later life are economically and socially valuable to society and future generations. These include contributions to the ‘silver economy’, family transactions, social participation, care giving, civil society, political action and advocacy for positive change.
Longer life expectancies potentially translate into more years of intergenerational overlap, but this effect can be counterbalanced by the delay in the timing of grandparenthood. Grandparents are older today that in the past and it is therefore crucial to study their health, since it could affect the quality of intergenerational exchange. Applying the Sullivan method on Italian data from 1998 to 2016, disability-free grandparenthood at age 65 (period life expectancy as a grandparent free from disability) by gender is estimated, as well as the contribution of changes in mortality and grandparenthood-disability prevalence on the evolution on disability-free grandparenthood.
Ageist language can bias research, with past findings indicating that labels such as ‘elderly’ invoke more negative stereotypes than neutral labels. We investigated how labels, contact, and perceived age influence stereotypes of older adults in Germany. One hundred and sixteen German-speaking participants (age-range = 14–33) reported their stereotypes and perceived age for one of three labels for older adults and reported contact with their grandparents. Targets labeled as ‘people the age of grandparents’ were perceived as older (modal age-range 70–90 years) and targets labeled as ‘older adults’ (modal age-range 50–70 years) as younger than those labeled ‘people 70–85 years of age.’ Stereotype ratings did not vary by label but were more negative when the target was perceived as older and more positive when contact with own grandparents was higher. Researchers and practitioners should use care in selecting labels when conducting and communicating their research as well as working with older adults.
Статья посвящена обзору зарубежных исследований межпоколенных отношений. В ней анализируются детско-прародительские отношения, а также фигура прародителя и понимание им своей роли в системе отношений с членами семьи, принадлежащими к разным поколениям. Постановка фигуры, относящейся к старшему поколению семьи, в центр внимания позволяет искать и находить новые факторы, определяю-щие характер и качество отношений между бабушками/дедушками и внуками. В статье также рассматри-вается специфика отношений с внуками прародителей из расширенных семей и прародителей, проживаю-щих отдельно. Ключевые слова: детско-прародительские отношения, прародители, внуки, отдельно проживающие прародители, расширенные семьи. Для цитаты: Булыгина М.В., Комарова С.В. Прародители и внуки (обзор зарубежных исследований) [Электронный ресурс] // Современная зарубежная психология.
This paper identifies typical generational structures of families over individual life courses (generational placement trajectories) and investigates changes in their prevalence across cohorts. The trajectories represent changing opportunity structures for intergenerational support, and they are inherently dynamic. As of yet, they have not been analysed holistically.
With data from the German Ageing Survey (https://www.dza.de/en/research/deas), for men and women of the birth cohorts 1939–43, 1944–48, and 1949–53 (n=2,607), the occurrence, timing, and ordering of generational placements defined through the (simultaneous) presence of biological parents, children, and grandchildren up to the age of 60 is examined using sequence and cluster analyses. Cohort, gender, and regional differences are examined with multinomial logistic regressions. Six different typical patterns of individual trajectories were identified, ranging from clusters with multiple transitions early in life to more stable clusters with fewer transitions later on. The most common were three-generation families, while patterns without children were the most uncommon. Across cohorts, generational structures of families changed towards “more stable” trajectories. Clusters characterised by early (grand)parenthood were more likely experienced by women and individuals growing up in former East Germany. The presented patterns of individual trajectories reveal novel detailed insights into how the opportunity structures for intergenerational family support differ between individuals and develop across individual age and socio-historical context.
Background
It is common for older people to become grandparents in later life. However, the impacts of grandparenting on their health and well-being remain ambiguous, especially in Chinese society, where the family is in the core of culture. The current study explored the relationship between grandparenthood and Chinese older people’s health and psychological well-being in Hong Kong.
Methods
Cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of 1,208 Hong Kong Chinese older people aged 55 and above through a telephone survey conducted in 2019. Participants were grouped into three categories: current grandparents (n = 507), grandparents-to-be (n = 275), and grandparents-not-to-be (n = 426). Multivariate linear regressions were performed to examine the relationship between grandparenting status and health and well-being outcomes, including self-rated physical health, mental health, resilience, and happiness. The potential moderating roles of older adults’ demographic characteristics, including age, sex, education, marital status, financial status, were also examined.
Results
Bivariate analyses suggested statistically significant differences between health and well-being across the three groups of participants. Regression models showed that, compared with grandparents-not-to-be, being a current grandparent was associated with a significantly higher happiness level. Being a future grandparent was associated with significantly higher levels of happiness, resilience, and self-rated physical health. Moderating analyses showed that age, marital status, and educational level could moderate the relationship between grandparent status and resilience and self-rated mental health.
Conclusions
The current study offers preliminary insights into the significant relationship between grandparenthood and older adults’ health and well-being. It calls for future studies to further explore the mechanisms between grandparenthood and the healthy ageing of different subgroups of older adults.
Fertility postponement and mortality decline are shifting the demography of the grandparent population in Canada. The ways in which the aging of the grandparent population affects families depends in large part on the health of grandparents. In this article, we document the aging of Canadian grandparents between 1985 and 2011. However, despite being older, grandparents are healthier, signaling that the compression of morbidity is outpacing the postponement of grandparenthood. This shift is partly due to the higher educational attainment of this population and partly due to secular improvements in health over time. The improved health of grandparents in Canada has important implications for intergenerational transfers and relationships.
T his comparative study addressed three open questions about the demography of grandparenthood in contemporary societies: First, at what age do people become grandparents? Second, how is grandparenthood sequenced with other transitions in later life? Third, how long is the grandparent life stage? To answer these questions, we analyzed retrospective data from the United States (NSFH) and 24 European countries (GGS, ESS, DEAS). Using survival methods, we estimated (1) age at grandparenthood; (2) demographic overlap with parenting, worker, and filial roles; and (3) expected length of the grandparent life stage. Three central findings emerged from the analysis: First, the timing of grandparenthood varies strongly across countries. Cross-national differences in the median age at grandparenthood are larger than in age at parenthood, age at retirement , and life expectancy. Compared to the United States (49 years among women, 52 years among men), grandparenthood in Eastern Europe occurs up to three years earlier in life; in Western Europe, up to eight years later. Second, cross-national variation in the life-course context of grandparenthood is less pronounced. In all countries, grand-parenthood overlaps rarely with active parenting but frequently with worker and filial roles. Third, the length of the grandparent life stage is more strongly influenced by the timing of fertility than by the timing of mortality. The longest years of life shared with grandchildren (35 years) are expected among grandmothers in East Germany and the United States; the shortest (21 years) among grandfathers in West Germany and Spain.
Using data from three British birth cohort studies, we examine patterns of social mobility over three generations of family members. For both men and women, absolute mobility rates (i.e., total, upward, downward, and outflow mobility rates) in the partial parents-children mobility tables vary substantially by grandparents' social class. In terms of relative mobility patterns, we find a statistically significant association between grandparents' and grandchildren's class positions, after parents' social class is taken into account. The net grandparents-grandchildren association can be summarized by a single uniform association parameter. Net of parents' social class, the odds of grandchildren entering the professional-managerial class rather than the unskilled manual class are at least two and a half times better if the grandparents were themselves in professional-managerial rather than unskilled manual-class positions. This grandparents effect in social mobility persists even when parents' education, income, and wealth are taken into account.
This research explored the delay of grandparenthood in East and West Germany, investigating how the timing and life-course context of this transition have changed across cohorts. The authors estimated the timing of passages into the grandparent role as well as demographic overlap with worker, parent, and filial roles. Data from the German Aging Survey (N = 3,628) revealed a rise of 3 months per birth cohort (1929–1958) in the median age at grandparenthood. As a result, the grandparent role decoupled almost entirely from active parenthood. Overlap with worker and filial roles was frequent and remained stable across cohorts. The findings direct attention to a neglected demographic trend that is striking in scope and precipitates change not only in the grandparent role but also in kinship structure.
This article examines multigenerational living arrange- ments of white, black, and Latino individuals using data from the Current Population Surveys. We describe people in multigenerational households as " hosts" or " guests." In terms of resources, guests have no home of their own, whereas hosts maintain an important source of independence. By age, the proportion of adults living as guests peaks in the late twenties, then declines until the late seventies. In contrast, hosting rates peak in the é fties. Men have higher guest rates and women have higher host rates at almost all ages. While blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to live in multigenerational households, those with higher incomes are less likely to live in multigenerational households and if they are living in multigen- erational households are less likely to be guests, regardless of race-ethnicity. We interpret this as consistent with the assumption that residential inde- pendence is generally preferred.
The study of intergenerational mobility and most population research are governed by a two-generation (parent-to-offspring) view of intergenerational influence, to the neglect of the effects of grandparents and other ancestors and nonresident contemporary kin. While appropriate for some populations in some periods, this perspective may omit important sources of intergenerational continuity of family-based social inequality. Social institutions, which transcend individual lives, help support multigenerational influence, particularly at the extreme top and bottom of the social hierarchy, but to some extent in the middle as well. Multigenerational influence also works through demographic processes because families influence subsequent generations through differential fertility and survival, migration, and marriage patterns, as well as through direct transmission of socioeconomic rewards, statuses, and positions. Future research should attend more closely to multigenerational effects; to the tandem nature of demographic and socioeconomic reproduction; and to data, measures, and models that transcend co-resident nuclear families.
The key argument in this article is that recent demographic change, with unprecedented duration of intergenerational ties and shifting balance between old and young in family lines necessitates three-generational views of transfers between grandparents and grandchildren. Much support from grandparents comes through continued parenting of the middle generation, the grandchildren’s parents. Using recent data from Norway, such indirect support is explored through three avenues: ideal role perceptions, actual help in parenting, support in difficult times and potential help. In most instances, there is considerable evidence that grandparents represent a “reserve army” for their children and grandchildren, especially grandmothers in the maternal line. Divorce may represent structural obstacles to the flow of support, especially in the paternal line. In designing and executing studies of modern grandparents, researchers need to be aware of asym¬metry as a potential problem and be very clear on where in vertical connections the research is anchored.
Zusammenfassung
Der demographische Wandel mit der beispiellos langen gemeinsamen Lebenszeit und der sich verschiebenden Balance zwischen Alt und Jung in der Familie erfordert in Hinblick auf Transfers zwischen Großeltern und Enkeln eine Drei-Generationen-Perspektive. Ein großer Teil der Hilfen von Großeltern besteht in ihrer fortwährenden Unterstützung für ihre erwachsenen Kinder, also die Eltern ihrer Enkelkinder. Mit aktuellen norwegischen Daten wird diese indirekte Unterstützung auf drei Ebenen untersucht: Wahrnehmung von Rollenmodellen, tatsächliche Hilfen bei dem elterlichen Aufgaben sowie Unterstützung in schwierigen Zeiten und potenzielle Hilfe. Dabei existieren deutliche Hinweise, dass die Großeltern eine „Reservearmee“ für ihre Kinder und Enkelkinder darstellen, und zwar insbesondere die Großmütter mütterlicherseits. Scheidungen weisen hingegen auf strukturelle Hindernisse für fortwährende Hilfeleistungen hin, insbesondere auf Seiten der Großeltern väterlicherseits. Beim Forschungsdesign und der Durchführung von Studien über heutige Großeltern muss man sich des potenziellen Asymmetrie-Problems bewusst sein und klare Entscheidungen darüber treffen, an welcher Stelle in der Generationenlinie die Untersuchung verankert wird.
To compare health expectancies calculated by Sullivan's method and the multistate life table method in order to identify the magnitude of the bias in Sullivan's method and assess how seriously this limits its use for monitoring population health expectancies.
A simulation model was used to compare health expectancies calculated using Sullivan's method and the multistate life table method under various scenarios for the evolution of disability over time in populations. The simulation model was based on abridged cohort life tables using data on French mortality from 1825-90 and disability prevalence data from the 1982 French health survey.
The Sullivan method could not detect a sudden change in disability transition rates, but the simulations suggested that it provides a good estimate of the true multistate value if there are smooth and relatively regular changes in disability prevalence over the longer term. When disability incidence rates are increasing or decreasing smoothly over time, the absolute bias in the Sullivan estimate of disability free life expectancy is relatively constant with age. The relative bias thus increases at older ages as disability free life expectancy decreases.
The difference between the estimates produced by the two methods was small for realistic scenarios for the evolution of population health and Sullivan's method is thus generally acceptable for monitoring relatively smooth long term trends in health expectancies for populations.
This study compares the health of 42 grandparent, 44 spouse, and 130 adult-child caregivers with 1,669 noncaregivers in 1994 and 1974. In 1994, all three caregiver groups had poorer mental health than the noncaregivers; grandparent caregivers also had poorer physical health and greater activity limitations. Spouse and adult-child caregivers had not differed from the noncaregivers 20 years prior, but grandparent caregivers had experienced poorer health than the noncaregivers and more stressful life events than the other caregivers. Caregiving appears to add new burdens to otherwise normal lives for spouse and adult-child caregivers, while being yet another aspect of a difficult life course for grandparent caregivers.
Using data from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors examine the determinants of
frequent and infrequent visiting between grandparents and their grandchild sets. A grandchild set consists of all the children
of a particular child of the grandparent, provided that the grandchildren reside in their parent's household. The 6 significant
predictors of frequent or infrequent contact are geographic distance, quality of relationship between grandparent and parent
of the grandchild set, number of grandchild sets, gender of grandparent, lineage of the grandchild set, and marital status
of the grandparent.
Demographic trends in the U.S. have produced an unprecedented number of grandparents who live long enough to see their grandchildren reach young adulthood and even middle age. In this analysis, data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations are used to identify patterns of change in grandparents' perceptions of affection and in-person contact and geographic proximity with adult grandchildren over five points of measurement between 1971 and 1994. Hierarchical linear modeling reveals quadratic trends in both growth curves. Affection declines over the first 14 years and then modestly reverses. Contact and proximity decline at an accelerating rate. Older grandparents have higher average levels of affection than younger grandparents, but they exhibit sharper rates of decline in contact and proximity over time. When cohorts are equated on age, later cohorts of grandparents decline more rapidly in contact and proximity, suggesting that the grandparent role has changed in recent history.
This study examines differences between rural farm and nonfarm families on the extent and quality of relations between adolescents and their grandparents, with emphasis on the mediational role of two linking relationships child-parent and parent-grandparent, In a longitudinal study of rural generations in Iowa, data concerning relations with grandparents (n = 1,181) were collected from grandchildren and their parents in 398 families. Grandchildren in farm families live closer to their grandparents and have more contact with them when compared with nonfarm rural adolescents, and this is particularly the case for paternal grandparents. Grandchildren in farm families also rate the quality of their relationship with paternal grandparents higher than those in nonfarm families. Relations between grandchildren and grandparents are contingent upon the quality of intergenerational relationships generally, but especially between parents and grandparents, among both farm and nonfarm families.
The transition to grandparenthood is presented as a stage in the family life cycle in which meaning comes from outside the boundaries of the original nuclear family unit through alliances initiated and produced by offspring. A demographic picture of grandparenthood is presented that shows that the transition is likely to occur in middle age and to overlap less with active parenting than was the case in the past, and that the ages of both grand-parents and new parents are important variables affecting transition. Past research has focused on grandparenthood as a role and has largely ignored the effects of family systems on role performance. A systems perspective shows that the grandparent-grandchild bond is initially mediated by the parents. As time passes, however, the bond becomes more direct, although it continues to be negotiated within the extended family system, which is always in flux. Focus on role has obscured the nature of the transition to grandparenthood and the years immediately following it, viewing it as an extension of parenting and not characteristic of real grandparents.
A rapidly aging population, such as the United States today, is characterized by the increased prevalence of chronic impairment. Robust estimation of disability-free life expectancy (DFLE), or healthy life expectancy, is essential for examining whether additional years of life are spent in good health and whether life expectancy is increasing faster than the decline of disability rates. Over 30 years since its publication, Sullivan's method remains the most widely used method to estimate DFLE. Therefore, it is surprising to note that Sullivan did not provide any formal justification of his method. Debates in the literature have centered around the properties of Sullivan's method and have yielded conflicting results regarding the assumptions required for Sullivan's method. In this article we establish a statistical foundation of Sullivan's method. We prove that, under stationarity assumptions, Sullivan's estimator is unbiased and consistent. This resolves the debate in the literature, which has generally concluded that additional assumptions are necessary. We also show that the standard variance estimator is consistent and approximately unbiased. Finally, we demonstrate that Sullivan's method can be extended to estimate DFLE without stationarity assumptions. Such an extension is possible whenever a cohort life table and either consecutive cross-sectional disability surveys or a longitudinal survey are available. Our empirical analysis of the 1907 and 1912 U.S. birth cohorts suggests that while mortality rates remain approximately stationary, disability rates decline during this time period.
In this essay I review recent studies of adult child–parent relationships, with an emphasis on studies using nationally representative samples. Adult children and their parents have frequent contact and emotionally satisfying relationships, but exchanges of practical and financial assistance are uncommon. Continuing relationships between adult children and their parents depend on women's work as kinkeepers. Parental divorce greatly weakens adult children's relationships with their fathers and also tends to weaken relationships with mothers. Adult child–parent relationships are not stronger in black families than in white families. The most pressing need for future research is the development of new theoretical formulations.
The authors examined whether the provision of child care helps older adults maintain better cognitive functioning. Descriptive evidence from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (n = 5,610 women and n = 4,760 men, ages 50–80) shows that intensively engaged grandparents have lower cognitive scores than the others. The authors show that this result is attributable to background characteristics and not to child care per se. Using an instrumental variable approach, they found that providing child care has a positive effect on 1 of the 4 cognitive tests considered: verbal fluency. For the other cognitive tests, no statistically significant effect was found. Given the same level of engagement, they found very similar results for grandmothers and grandfathers. These findings point to the inclusion of grandparenting among other cognitively stimulating social activities and the need to consider such benefits when discussing the implications of this important type of nonmonetary intergenerational transfer.
This paper documents increasing cohabitation in the United States, and the implications of this trend for the family lives of children. The stability of marriage-like relationships (including marriage and cohabitation) has decreased despite a constant divorce rate. Children increasingly live in cohabiting families either as a result of being born to cohabiting parents or of their mother s entry into a cohabiting union. The proportion of births to unmarried women born into cohabiting families increased from 29 to 39 per cent in the period 1980-84 to 1990-94, accounting for almost all of the increase in unmarried childbearing. As a consequence, about two-fifths of all children spend some time in a cohabiting family, and the greater instability of families begun by cohabitation means that children are also more likely to experience family disruption. Estimates from multi-state life tables indicate the extent to which the family lives of children are spent increasingly in cohabiting families and decreasingly in married families.
Drawing on past research and prominent theoretical orientations, this research note suggests new approaches to intergenerational dynamics. For 316 grandparent-grandchild pairs, we found that the transition of grandchildren to higher education, controlling for other transitions, improves the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship. For grandparent mentoring, however, we see evidence of a generational stake, with grandparents overestimating their mentoring role, compared to grandchildren, during this transition. This generational stake reflects the importance of grandparent education, with increased mentoring for the college-going grandchildren of college-educated grandparents. These findings indicate that the intergenerational literature can be significantly advanced by taking a long-term perspective, incorporating multiple points of view, and examining contextual variation. Moreover, greater understanding of these intergenerational ties will benefit research on families and individual development.
Drawing on family systems theory, this study examined whether social cohesion with grandparents moderated the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms from mothers to their adolescent and young adult children. We analyzed data from 2,280 grandchildren and their mothers who participated in two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Results revealed that grandchildren who were least integrated with their grandparents resembled their mothers in the severity of depressive symptoms. Grandchildren who were more integrated with their grandparents bore no such resemblance. We conclude that grandparents are consequential family actors who, by conditioning parent-child dynamics, influence the long-term emotional well-being of their grandchildren. Results are discussed in terms of intergenerational interdependence and the untapped resource that older adults represent.
We use data from a variety of sources to describe recent dramatic changes in the composition, economic stability, and diversity of American families. The declining prevalence of early marriage, increasing level of marital dissolution, and growing tendency to never marry, especially among some racial and ethnic groups, reflect changes in the relative economic prospects of men and women and support the conclusion that marriage is becoming less valued as a source of economic stability. These developments also imply that relatively more children are born outside of marriage, spend at least part of their childhood in a single-parent household, and endure multiple changes in family composition. Paralleling these trends have been sharp changes in the economic stability of families, characterized most notably by a growing importance of women's income and increasing economic inequality among American families.
Family relationships across several generations are becoming increasingly important in American society. They are also increasingly diverse in structure and in functions. In reply to the widely debated “family decline” hypothesis, which assumes a nuclear family model of 2 biological parents and children, I suggest that family multigenerational relations will be more important in the 21st century for 3 reasons: (a) the demographic changes of population aging, resulting in “longer years of shared lives” between generations; (b) the increasing importance of grandparents and other kin in fulfilling family functions; (c) the strength and resilience of intergenerational solidarity over time. I also indicate that family multigenerational relations are increasingly diverse because of (a) changes in family structure, involving divorce and stepfamily relationships; (b) the increased longevity of kin; (c) the diversity of intergenerational relationship “types.” Drawing on the family research legacy of Ernest W. Burgess, I frame my arguments in terms of historical family transitions and hypotheses. Research from the Longitudinal Study of Generations is presented to demonstrate the strengths of multigenerational ties over time and why it is necessary to look beyond the nuclear family when asking whether families are still functional.
We consider the contribution of changes in mortality and fertility to availability of living mothers and living children among older people in Britain, Finland and France. The proportion of people aged around 60 with a mother alive will more than double between those born in 1911 and 1970 before starting to decline slightly. Conversely, a higher proportion of elderly people are likely to have a surviving child than for any generation ever born in all three countries in the next quarter century or so, with about 85% of 80-year-old women having at least one surviving child, and about two-thirds having two or more.Cet article analyse la contribution des changements de mortalité et de fécondité sur la probabilité, pour les personnes âgées en Grande Bretagne, en Finlande et en France, d’avoir encore sa mère vivante ou d’avoir des enfants vivants. La proportion de personnes âgées d’environ 60 ans avec leur mère toujours en vie devrait doubler entre les cohortes nées en 1911 et celles nées en 1970, puis baisser légèrement par la suite. De même dans les trois pays, la proportion de personnes âgées ayant un enfant vivant devrait être plus élevée pour les cohortes à naître au cours du prochain quart de siècle qu’elle ne l’a jamais été dans le passé, avec 85 pour cent des femmes de 80 ans ayant au moins un enfant survivant, et deux tiers ayant deux enfants ou plus.
Métodos revisados y nuevas fuenies de datos para estudiar el ciclo de vida de la familia permiten medir con mayor exactitud la edad típica en que ocurren los hechos en dicho ciclo y describir las formas típicas de cambio en la composición y en las características económicas de la familia desde el principio hasta el término de él. Se encuentra que los cambios ocurridos durante el siglo veinte en la edad al casarse, en el tamaiio de la familia completa, en el espaciamiento de los hijos y en la esperanza de vida, han influído sustanc almente en el ciclo de vida de la familia media de los Estados Unidos. He aquí una comparación de las mujeres más jóvenes y para las cuales existen datos, con las mujeres de 40 a 60 años de edad:
Las mujeres mas jóvenes se casan uno ados años ántes y terminan su período de reproducción dos a tres años más jóvenes; su edad al casarse su hijo menor es de 4 a 5 años menor y la duración de su vida de casada es cerca de nueve años mayor. Los datos del Censo de 1960 muestran que de ocho parejas que se encuentran en su primer añ de casados, siete constituyen un hogar independiente de sus parientes; al cabo de diez años de casados el 99 por ciento tiene hogares separados. El límite del período de reproducción sitúiee entre los 5 y los 20 años de casados, cuando cerca del 85 por ciento de las parejas conservan a algunos de sus hijos en casa.
El ingreso máximo de la familia se registra entre las familias cuyo jefe (marido) tiene de 45 a 54 años de edad. Sin embargo, el ingreso maximo por miembro de la familia se alcanza cerca de diez años después, cuando la mayoría de los hijos han abandonado el hogar.
During the past four decades, historians and demographers have argued that historical Northwest Europe and North America had a unique weak-family system characterized by neolocal marriage and nuclear family structure. This analysis uses newly available micro-data from 84 historical and contemporary censuses of 34 countries to evaluate whether the residential behavior of the aged in historical Northwest Europe and North America was truly distinctive. The results show that with simple controls for agricultural employment and demographic structure, comparable measures of the living arrangements of the aged show little systematic difference between nineteenth-century Northwest Europe and North America and twentieth-century developing countries. These findings cast doubt on the hypothesis that Northwest Europeans and North Americans had an exceptional historical pattern of preference for nuclear families. Copyright (c) 2009 The Population Council, Inc..
The National Center for Health Statistics is considering several techniques for combining mortality and morbidity rates into a single index, which might provide a more adequate measure of changes over time in the nation's health status. A technique which weights life table values according to disability time experienced at each age level and produces measures of expectation of life free of disability and expectation of disability is described. Results are presented using two alternative measures of disability time experienced by a population during a year. The two measures are (a) the total volume of disability, which encompasses all forms of long-term and short-term disability, and (b) bed disability, which includes only periods of institutional confinement and noninstitutional disability involving bed confinement. Expectation of disability-free lifetime was about 65 years in the United States in the mid-1960's, compared with a conventional life expectancy of about 70 years. The expected lifetime duration of all forms of disability was approximately 5 years, 2 years of which reflected disability before age 65, and 3 years was disability experienced by persons older than 65. Differences between males and females in expectation of disability are not great, but differences between whites and other persons are substantial and favorable to whites. Expectation of life free of bed disability was about 68 years, and expectation of bed disability was approximately 2 years. Of the 2 years expected bed disability, persons 65 and over account for over 1 year. Differences between males and females in expectation of bed disability are noticeable and favorable to males. Differences between whites and other persons, however, are not substantial.
A new interpretation of mathematical formulas developed by Keyfitz illustrates how the concept of entropy (H) can be applied to the analysis of marriage dissolution. The quantities H
(divorce) and H
(widowhood) indicate the changes in marriage duration which would result from small, constant changes in duration-specific divorce and widowhood rates, respectively. An examination of values for the United States, Nepal and Colombia illustrates the utility of H
(i) in assessing the impact of changes in widowhood and divorce and clarifies the relationship between H and changes in life expectancy.
Bringing together a life course and demographic perspective provides a useful framework for studying aging. This perspective conceptualizes aging as the dynamic process of cohorts moving through the life course in historical time. Each cohort is embedded in a social structure that regulates how it ages, and the social structure changes as the cohort advances through the life course over time. This view of aging provides a strategy for developing research on such basic questions as: Why is the life course structured the way it is? How, and why, does the experience of aging differ between cohorts? And how, and why, is aging experienced differentially by various segments of a cohort?
As population ageing strains social insurance systems, cohorts whose own fertility was low will be reaching elderly status, leaving close biological kin in short supply. However, there is a countervailing trend, inasmuch as burgeoning divorce, remarriage and family blending have expanded the numbers and varieties of step-kin and other non-standard kinship ties. Methods of computer microsimulation in conjunction with richer sample surveys can help us to foresee the contours of kin numbers and kinship relations in the future. Prime areas include the likely frequency of kin-deprived elderly, the overlap with economic deprivation and the interaction between kin frequency and intensity of contact. Step-ties may be weaker but nonetheless critical in raising the probability of at least one compatible member with whom one can choose to maintain contact and rely on. Kinship networks extended through half- and step-links, by stretching across racial and economic lines, may promote social cohesion.
This article presents a demographic profile of grandparents, using the National Survey of Families and Households. Specific dimensions of grandparenthood addressed include grandparents' survival, the timing of grandparenthood, grandparents' involvement in other roles, surrogate parenting, and stepgrandparents. The data indicate considerable heterogeneity among grandparents of different genders and races or ethnicities. They also suggest modifications in previous descriptions of modern grandparenthood.
This study sought to compare the functional and self-rated health of grandparents raising grandchildren with that of noncaregiving grandparents.
A secondary analysis of data from the 1992 to 1994 National Survey of Families and Households was conducted. Bivariate and logistic analyses compared 173 custodial and 3304 noncustodial grandparents in terms of functional health limitations, self-rated health, and satisfaction with health.
Custodial grandparents were significantly more likely to have limitations in 4 of the 5 activities of daily living (ADLs) examined, with more than half reporting some limitation in 1 of the 5 ADLs. A logistic regression analysis indicated that caregiving grandparents had 50% higher odds of having an ADL limitation. Caregivers were significantly more likely to report lower satisfaction with health, and a statistical trend indicated that the caregivers had lower self-rated health.
Further research is needed to determine whether the differences observed reflect artifacts or actual differences in functional abilities and other health measures. The need for policies that support rather than penalize grandparents raising grandchildren is stressed.
This study explores how grandchild care in conjunction with grandparents' retirement affects depressive symptoms, using data from the Health and Retirement Survey. The findings demonstrate that retirement moderates the influence of grandchild care obligations on well-being, measured by depressive symptoms. For retired men, freedom from grandchild care obligations is associated with heightened well-being. Among women, continued employment seems to protect against potential negative effects of extensive grandchild care obligations on well-being. The results for men seem most in line with the argument that family care obligations spoil retirement, whereas the results for women suggest a scenario that is most compatible with the role enhancement thesis.
Although there exists a growing body of literature dedicated to understanding the complexities of grandparenting, few researchers have documented the demographic patterns and social trends that encompass contemporary grandparenthood. Concomitantly, in instances where researchers have described such patterns, data are largely derived from studies profiling American populations. This paper, therefore, examines social trends in grandparenthood and outlines the demographic context within which Canadians participate in grandparent-grandchild relationships. Drawing on nationally representative samples and data derived from both the 1990 and 1995 General Social Surveys of Canada, this study analyzes patterns influencing grandparenthood such as grandparents' rates of survival, the prevalence of grandparenthood, multiple generation families, step-grandparenthood and the availability of grandchildren. In addition, analysis considers rates of intergenerational cohabitation and surrogate parenting as well as grandparents' participation in additional social roles.
Across the generations: Grandparents and grandchildren. (Canadian Social Trends Report No. 11–008)
- A. Milan
- B. Hamm
Health expectancy calculation by the Sullivan method
- C. Jagger
- B. Cox
- S. Le Roy
The kin of the aged in A.D. 2000: The chickens come home to roost
- Hammel E.
The lost decade? Social change in the U.S. after 2000
- J. A. Seltzer
- J. J. Yahirun