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American Grandparents Providing Extensive Child Care to Their Grandchildren

Prevalence and Profile

^a Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Canada
^b School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Correspondence: Esme Fuller-Thomson, PhD, Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, 246 Bloor St. W, Toronto, Canada, M5S 1A1. E-mail: esme.fuller.thomson{at}utoronto.ca.

Decision Editor: Laurence G. Branch, PhD

Purpose: This study sought to determine the prevalence and profile of grandparents providing extensive care for a grandchild (grandparents who provide 30+ hours per week or 90+ nights per year of child care, yet are not the primary caregiver of the grandchild). Design and methods: Secondary analysis of the 3,260 grandparent respondents in the 1992–94 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Extensively caregiving grandparents were compared with custodial grandparents (those with primary responsibility for raising a grandchild for 6+ months), noncaregivers, occasional caregivers (<10 hours per week), and intermediate caregivers using chi-square tests, one-way analysis of variance tests, and logistic regression analyses. Results: Close to 7% of all grandparents provided extensive caregiving, as did 14.9% of those who had provided any grandchild care in the last month. Extensive caregivers most closely resembled custodial caregivers and had least in common with those grandparents who never provided child care. Implications: Areas for future research, policy, and practice are highlighted, including the potential impact of welfare reform legislation on extensively caregiving grandparents.

Key Words: Family child care • Grandparent caregiving • Later-life families