Pub Date : 2018-11-14DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0003
D. Price, Eloi Ribe, Giorgio Di Gessa, K. Glaser
In this chapter we argue that to understand the ways that policy, structure and culture all shape how grandmothers help to care for children, we need to re-think our approach to these issues. We need in particular to think about policies in terms of how they impact on mothers and grandmothers simultaneously, providing different and complex incentives and opportunities in each generation. This leads us to conceptualise childcare as something that is organised in the wider family, and to think of family care versus formal care when considering the wider impacts on individuals and society, rather than focussing on maternal versus non-maternal childcare. It also necessitates thinking about how cultures of gender, family and paid work might be influencing family-level discussions and negotiations. We show that conceptualising childcare as a family collaboration framed by policy and culture helps to explain substantial variations in grandmaternal childcare across Europe..
{"title":"Grandparental childcare: a reconceptualisation of family policy regimes","authors":"D. Price, Eloi Ribe, Giorgio Di Gessa, K. Glaser","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter we argue that to understand the ways that policy, structure and culture all shape how grandmothers help to care for children, we need to re-think our approach to these issues. We need in particular to think about policies in terms of how they impact on mothers and grandmothers simultaneously, providing different and complex incentives and opportunities in each generation. This leads us to conceptualise childcare as something that is organised in the wider family, and to think of family care versus formal care when considering the wider impacts on individuals and society, rather than focussing on maternal versus non-maternal childcare. It also necessitates thinking about how cultures of gender, family and paid work might be influencing family-level discussions and negotiations. We show that conceptualising childcare as a family collaboration framed by policy and culture helps to explain substantial variations in grandmaternal childcare across Europe..","PeriodicalId":266833,"journal":{"name":"Grandparenting Practices around the World","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128736085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-14DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0008
Lyn Craig, Myra Hamilton, Judith E. Brown
Grandparents are important providers of childcare while their adult children participate in work and other activities. The literature suggests that grandmothers are more likely than grandfathers to provide care for their grandchildren, and that the prevalence and intensity of grandparent childcare provision varies by country. But research is lacking on the composition of grandparent childcare time, and whether this varies across countries. What patterns do we see in the gendered distribution of childcare tasks among grandparents? To what extent does this vary across countries with different employment patterns, family policy regimes and norms of familial obligation? Using Time Use Surveys of Australia, Korea, Italy and France this chapter will explore how grandparents are spending their time with grandchildren. It reveals cross-national similarities and differences in the gendered distribution and relative composition of care and discusses the implications for grandmothers and grandfathers in the four different welfare regimes.
{"title":"The composition of grandparent childcare: gendered patterns in cross-national perspective","authors":"Lyn Craig, Myra Hamilton, Judith E. Brown","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Grandparents are important providers of childcare while their adult children participate in work and other activities. The literature suggests that grandmothers are more likely than grandfathers to provide care for their grandchildren, and that the prevalence and intensity of grandparent childcare provision varies by country. But research is lacking on the composition of grandparent childcare time, and whether this varies across countries. What patterns do we see in the gendered distribution of childcare tasks among grandparents? To what extent does this vary across countries with different employment patterns, family policy regimes and norms of familial obligation? Using Time Use Surveys of Australia, Korea, Italy and France this chapter will explore how grandparents are spending their time with grandchildren. It reveals cross-national similarities and differences in the gendered distribution and relative composition of care and discusses the implications for grandmothers and grandfathers in the four different welfare regimes.","PeriodicalId":266833,"journal":{"name":"Grandparenting Practices around the World","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131272104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-14DOI: 10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781447340645.003.0002
R. Margolis, B. Arpino
Intergenerational relationships between grandparents and grandchildren can offer tremendous benefits to family members of each generation. The demography of grandparenthood – the timing, length and population characteristics – shape the extent to which young children have grandparents available, how many grandparents are alive, and the duration of overlap with grandparents. In this chapter, we examine how the demography of grandparenthood varies across 16 countries in Europe and two countries in North America, and why it is changing. Next, we examine variation in two key determinants of intergenerational relationships – the labour force participation and health of grandparents. Last, we comment on some important changes in the demography of grandparenthood that may come in the future.
{"title":"The demography of grandparenthood in 16 European countries and two North American countries","authors":"R. Margolis, B. Arpino","doi":"10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781447340645.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/POLICYPRESS/9781447340645.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Intergenerational relationships between grandparents and grandchildren can offer tremendous benefits to family members of each generation. The demography of grandparenthood – the timing, length and population characteristics – shape the extent to which young children have grandparents available, how many grandparents are alive, and the duration of overlap with grandparents. In this chapter, we examine how the demography of grandparenthood varies across 16 countries in Europe and two countries in North America, and why it is changing. Next, we examine variation in two key determinants of intergenerational relationships – the labour force participation and health of grandparents. Last, we comment on some important changes in the demography of grandparenthood that may come in the future.","PeriodicalId":266833,"journal":{"name":"Grandparenting Practices around the World","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124828148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-14DOI: 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0014
Virpi Timonen
This chapter contains reflections on the notion that the 21st century could be called the ‘grandparents’ century’. This is a reference to the prediction that, by the middle of this century, there will be relatively more ‘old’ people than children in the global population. As the majority of older adults are grandparents, the global population in the 21st century is characterised by the presence of unprecedented numbers of grandparents. Grandparents will be increasingly old, and many of them will enjoy good health. In some cases, they might even compete over the opportunity to spend time with and care for one or two grandchildren. Higher proportions of the younger grandparents will be working, if the plans to extend working lives succeed, but they will share such long spans of life with their grandchildren that they might have a better opportunity to bond when the latter are teenagers or young adults. Grandparents, rather than parents, might become important sources of direct material transfers to their grandchildren. Whether and when people become grandparents, and how this varies across contexts, and across cohorts, is set to define a new type of inequality – in access to, or inability to enter, the grandparent role.
{"title":"Conclusions: the grandparents’ century?","authors":"Virpi Timonen","doi":"10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter contains reflections on the notion that the 21st century could be called the ‘grandparents’ century’. This is a reference to the prediction that, by the middle of this century, there will be relatively more ‘old’ people than children in the global population. As the majority of older adults are grandparents, the global population in the 21st century is characterised by the presence of unprecedented numbers of grandparents. Grandparents will be increasingly old, and many of them will enjoy good health. In some cases, they might even compete over the opportunity to spend time with and care for one or two grandchildren. Higher proportions of the younger grandparents will be working, if the plans to extend working lives succeed, but they will share such long spans of life with their grandchildren that they might have a better opportunity to bond when the latter are teenagers or young adults. Grandparents, rather than parents, might become important sources of direct material transfers to their grandchildren. Whether and when people become grandparents, and how this varies across contexts, and across cohorts, is set to define a new type of inequality – in access to, or inability to enter, the grandparent role.","PeriodicalId":266833,"journal":{"name":"Grandparenting Practices around the World","volume":"169 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129604394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}