Backup Parents,Playmates, Friends: Grandparents' Time With Grandchildren

Grandparents play varied roles in their grandchildren's lives. Prior work has focused mostly on historical trends in and implications of grandparent coresidence and has not considered more broadly how grandparents and grandchildren interact. Using time‐use diary data for 6,762 person‐years from the 1997 to 2007 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Survey, the authors examine patterns in the amount and activity composition of time American children spent with their grandparents, differentiated by family structure, adult employment, and child's age. Results showed that although only about 7% of children lived with their grandparents, many more children spent time with their grandparents: about 50% of young children, 35% of elementary‐age children, and 20% of teens spent at least some time with their grandparents in a typical week. This suggests that grandparents play a variety of roles in their grandchildren's lives, depending on the amount and kinds of support needed.