UF Researcher: Grandchildren May Play Role In Caring For Grandparents

June 5, 1997

GAINESVILLE — Millions of older Americans may find that their best care comes not from government programs or their own children, but from grown-up grandchildren, a University of Florida researcher has found in a study that spanned 23 years.

But the loving attention from adult grandchildren could be tested by the demands of careers and different ideas about the role of women in the workplace, said Terry Mills, a UF sociology professor.

“Grandchildren have the potential to play an instrumental role in caring for their grandparents,” Mills said. “Currently, there are about 32 million Americans age 65 and older, and that population is growing. With few, if any, provisions in Medicare for long-term care, the question becomes Who will care for the elderly?’”

Adult grandchildren can help their grandparents with such things as meal preparation, bathing, home repairs, transportation to doctor appointments and balancing checkbooks, he said. Adult grandchildren, who usually have special affection for their grandparents, are likely to be in better physical shape to provide care than their graying parents, he said.

Medicare is not likely to fill the gap because the program is designed for acute, short-term illness while most people over age 75 face multiple chronic sickness, he said.

Mills and other researchers surveyed three and four generations of families, totaling 2,003 people, between 1971 and 1994. Unlike in other studies, they focused on grandparents’ relationships with grandchildren who were adults rather than youngsters or teen-agers.

The research suggests the relationship between the two generations is likely to change over time as grandchildren marry, raise children and pursue careers, and as grandparents become ill or widowed, he said.

“We found that becoming parents strengthens the bond adult grandchildren feel for their grandparents, probably because assuming family roles similar to ones their grandparents took makes them feel more like them,” Mills said. “On the other hand, moving into full-time careers resulted in less contact and closeness with grandparents, probably because of job demands.”

Gender differences emerged in such relationships, with adult granddaughters pursuing careers reporting less agreement in opinions with their grandmothers and more with their grandfathers, the study found.

“The grandmothers grew up in an era when women were housewives, whereas the granddaughters came of age during the women’s liberation movement of the 70s,” Mills said. “Changing expectations make the granddaughters more like their grandfathers in terms of being independent and oriented toward careers.”

Mills found that gender differences affect grandparents as well as grandchildren. For example, grandmothers who lost their spouses said they felt more affection toward their grandchildren and spent more time with them, while grandfathers generally had less to do with their grandchildren than they did before their wives died, he said.

“Because of the way they are socialized, women typically are the caregivers and kinkeepers’ in families,” Mills said. “Since they are usually the ones in families to be more aware of who got married, who died and who the cousins are, it’s not surprising they feel greater closeness and affection toward family members.”

No gender differences, however, were found when grandparents became ill. Ailing grandfathers and grandmothers both reported feeling a heightened sense of closeness and shared values with their grandchildren, Mills said.

“These grandparents probably recognize their frailty and the fact that they are approaching the end of their lives,” he said. “In their desire to continue their family line, they may feel a strong pull toward a realization that they’ve done a good job in communicating their values to the younger generation and feel much closer to them ideologically.”

With increases in life expectancy, today’s grandparents and grandchildren have opportunities to share in each others’ lives that might have been unheard of even a generation ago, he said.