Young children and their grandparents

Grandparents have always played an important role in raising children and in family life in general. However, very little is known about the role that grandparents play in the lives of Australian children. With data from the Growing Up in Australia study, the authors provide estimates of the extent to which young children have contact with their grandparents including: living with grandparents; face-to-face contact; child-grandparent contact after parental separation; and regular care by grandparents. They find that there are very few children who have no face-to-face contact with at least one grandparent. The paper also explores the quality of relationships between children and grandparents and compares it to that between centre-based carers and the children in their care.