Grandparents Plus is working in partnership with the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Beth Johnson Foundation on a major two year project to explore the role of grandparents within family life across Europe.

 
Despite the growing importance of grandparenting, we know relatively little about its demography or about how policies in different European countries support different types of grandparent roles.  In June 2010 we published the findings of our scoping study which reviewed existing literature on the role of grandparents in Europe and also highlighted key policies likely to be important in shaping the role grandparents play in family life.

 
The objective of the main study is to examine how different ‘grandparent policy regimes’  are related to levels of involvement of grandparents with their grandchildren in the following ten countries:

Denmark, France , Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the UK.

 
The study seeks to address the following questions:

• How do the living arrangements of grandparents vary within and across European countries and how have they changed across time?

• How do the characteristics of grandparents vary across Europe in terms of age, living arrangements, tenure status, socio-economic status, education, marital status, participation in paid work, retirement status and health?

• How does the level of involvement of grandparents with their grandchildren vary across Europe in terms of contact, help and care? What characteristics of grandparents help to explain the diversity of arrangements?

• For the ten countries to be examined, how do family policies vary, and how are these variations in policy related to observed diversity in the levels of involvement of grandparents with their grandchildren?

The methodology we are using combines multivariate analysis of Census data and other international data sets on older people, and policy analysis. The  researchers aim to devise a typology of grandparenting to gain theoretical insights into the relationship between public policy and grandparenting roles across the ten countries.

Project timetable: Publication of final report in Spring 2013

For further information about the project, contact:

Sarah Wellard, Policy and Research Manager at Grandparents Plus sarah.wellard@grandparentsplus.org.uk

or Karen Glaser, Reader at the Institute of Gerontology, Kings College London karen.glaser@kcl.ac.uk

College Institute of Gerontology http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/kpi/geront/index.aspx and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation http://www.gulbenkian.org.uk/