Volume 37 - Article 29 | Pages 917–928
Who becomes a grandparent – and when? Educational differences in the chances and timing of grandparenthood
Abstract
Background: Despite recent advances, the demographic understanding of grandparenthood remains limited.
Objective: Our study examines educational differences in the transition to grandparenthood. Comparing East and West Germany, we analyze educational differences in a) the chance of becoming a grandparent, and b) the timing of grandparenthood for both men and women.
Methods: We used fertility data across three family generations (German Ageing Survey, N = 2,434 men and women born 1933‒1948) and methods of survival time analysis to study educational gradients in the transition to grandparenthood.
Results: We found a strong educational gradient in the chances of grandparenthood among West German women: Lower-educated women’s chances of becoming a grandmother were similar to higher-educated women’s chances of becoming a mother.
Conclusions: Our findings have implications for research on multi-generational social mobility and on the consequences of grandparenthood.
Contribution: Our study is the first to analyze how the transition to grandparenthood is socially stratified.
Author’s Affiliation
- Jan Skopek - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland EMAIL
- Thomas Leopold - Universität zu Köln, Germany EMAIL
Other articles by the same author/authors in Demographic Research
A parallel kinship universe? A replication of Kolk et al. (2023) with Dutch register data on kinship networks
Volume 52 - Article 28
KINMATRIX: A new data resource for studies of families and kinship
Volume 51 - Article 25
Similar articles in Demographic Research
Partnering in turbulent times: Hooking up, dating, and romantic relationship formation in college, 2019–2024
Volume 54 - Article 37
| Keywords:
college students,
COVID-19,
gender,
partner choice,
relationship formation,
romantic love,
sexual orientation
Economic resources and parity among US women: A conjoint experiment on preferred family scenarios
Volume 54 - Article 34
| Keywords:
conjoint analysis,
economic resources,
experiments,
family,
fertility
Partnership life courses and completed fertility in Spain
Volume 54 - Article 29
| Keywords:
feature selection,
fertility,
life course,
partnership trajectories,
Spain
Between two worlds: Cohort fertility dynamics before, during, and after the transition to a market economy in Hungary – A decomposition analysis
Volume 54 - Article 19
| Keywords:
completed cohort fertility,
decomposition,
decomposition,
education,
parity,
regime change
Harmonised fertility histories in four British longitudinal cohort studies
Volume 54 - Article 18
| Keywords:
cohort studies,
fertility,
harmonised data,
United Kingdom
Cited References: 18
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar