Most people with children know that it is good when planning a family to also think about the role future grandparents will play. It has now been scientifically proven that without Grandma and Grandpa not much happens in the family. In a large-scale study, scientists at the German Institute for Economic Research and the Federal Institute for Population Research evaluated representative data sets from 1997 to 2020 and found that grandparents play a decisive role in childcare – even though crèches and daycare centers have always played a role in recent years were further expanded. The grandparents are increasingly part of a care mix consisting of a crèche, day-care center, after-school care center or all-day school.
About a third of the children in the crèche are regularly supervised by their grandparents, and the figure for children of primary school age is still a fifth. Overall, grandparents spend an average of eight hours a week working for their grandchildren, and they are mainly in demand in the afternoons and when there are childcare bottlenecks, i.e. when the children become ill or the day care center is closed. The grandmothers fill in 60 percent, the grandfathers at least 40 percent.
Surprising Pandemic Effects
The study, which was presented in Berlin on Monday, contains many details on everyday life in German families. That it is mainly the maternal grandmothers who take care of things, and that families in general wish to have more of their grandparents or to be closer to them. That there are hardly any differences between West and East, even in East Germany, which is traditionally well supplied with day-care centers, grandparents have been constantly on duty over the years. Only in families with a migration background do children spend less time with grandma and grandpa. This is due to the fact that in many of these families the older generation is simply missing, for example because the parents immigrated or fled alone.
Sociologist and economist Katharina Spieß says it is clear what will result from the willingness of the older generation to get involved. On the one hand, the parents would be relieved, especially the mothers, who still bear the brunt of childcare. According to the study, their satisfaction with their available time increases by a full 14 percent when grandma and grandpa are engaged. On the other hand, the children benefited both from the presence of their grandparents and from an increase in maternal satisfaction.
The research team therefore demands that the state recognize the achievements of grandparents more. Be it by creating better framework conditions for grandparents to look after children, for example through grandparent leave based on parental leave. Be it by making it possible for grandparents who are still employed to balance work and family life.
And the researchers noticed something else during their two-year work: that childcare by grandparents even increased during the pandemic – even though the elderly were considered a vulnerable group and should not be exposed to so many contacts.