Grandchildren You Get to Do It All O Er Again

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J Soc Soc Policy. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 Jun 21.

Published in final edited grade as:

J Soc Soc Policy. 2008; 7: 53–69.

PMCID: PMC2888319

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Grandparents Raising Grandchildren in the U.s.a.: Changing Family Forms, Stagnant Social Policies

Abstract

As a consequence of increased divorce rates, the proliferation of single-parent families, and patterns of economic stagnation, parents are increasingly relying on extended family unit to care for children. In the by few decades, a substantial increase in the number of grandparents raising grandchildren has been observed within the United States. Grandparents who enhance their grandchildren are specially vulnerable, every bit are the grandchildren in their care; however, U.Southward. policy currently presents many barriers, gaps, and unintended consequences for grandparent caregivers. In this paper, nosotros use ii theoretical paradigms 1) structural lag and two) the political economy of crumbling perspective to argue that U.S. policy has not kept pace with the reality of the family unit and – equally a result – those families who are nearly vulnerable oft receive the to the lowest degree support. Nosotros advise that as family forms go more than various a redefinition of the family to one that is less bound by residence and biology, to one based more than on function, volition exist required.

Introduction

Over the past 50 years, profound changes in family structures have altered the way many families organize to raise their children. Family forms have diversified equally a consequence of increased divorce rates and the proliferation of single-parent families, thereby increasing the need of parents to rely on extended family support for intendance of their children. At the aforementioned time, economical stagnation--equally manifested by declining existent wages and the wholesale reduction in jobs paying a living wage and providing benefits--too as retrenchment in government benefits for single mothers and the working poor, have compromised the ability of parents to effectively enhance their children, furthering their demand to rely on extended relatives to make full the gap in childcare. Most usually, grandparents go the master guardians of distressed families where the eye-generation is incapable of raising their children. Yet, in spite of the proliferation of grandparent-headed families, public policy in the United States has not kept pace with challenges posed past this non-traditional family unit course. In this commodity, we discuss how structural features of American social welfare policy take impeded an adequate response to the unique needs faced by custodial grandparents and the grandchildren they are raising. We besides examine this issue in general theoretical terms as an example of how family policies oftentimes lag behind changing social weather condition, particularly when they are predicated on ideological preferences for traditional family unit forms that resist acknowledging the needs of families that lie exterior the boundaries of those forms.

Grandparent Custodial Intendance in the The states

In the early 1990's, researchers began to annotation the increasing prevalence of grandparents raising grandchildren within the African-American community, primarily every bit an indirect effect of parental addiction to crack cocaine (Minkler & Roe, 1993, Burton, 1992). This research into the substantial increase of grandparent-headed households drew attention to the unique needs and challenges faced by grandparent caregivers and the children in their care. Equally of 2000, nearly ii.iv million grandparents claimed primary responsibility for a coresident grandchild. These included grandparents living in households consisting of iii (or more) generations too every bit those in skipped-generation households consisting only of grandparents and grandchildren (Simmons & Lawler-Dye, 2003).

When examined from the bespeak of view of the youngest generation it is estimated that 6.five million children in the U.s.a. currently live with at least ane grandparent (Kreider, 2004), accounting for approximately 9% of all children nationally and more than half (56%) of those not living with their parents. While multigenerational coresidence is frequently seen as a mode to back up the older generation in the household, many of these living arrangements are formed and maintained for the benefit of the children within them. Children living in grandparent-headed households—those most likely to be the beneficiaries of grandparent care—doubled over the last quarter of the 20^th century, rising from 2.2 million in 1970 to 3.ix million in 1997 (Bryson & Casper, 1999). Where this trend was initially driven past an increment in the number of grandparent-headed households containing grandchildren and their unmarried parents, by the early 1990'south the limerick of these households shifted to grandchildren in the absenteeism of parents (Bryson & Casper, 1999). While some of these households are transitory, the large bulk of custodial grandparents in the U.S. have been responsible for their grandchildren for at least i year, with about two in five having been responsible for over five years (Bryson & Casper, 1999).

Grandparent caregiving is not equally distributed beyond social class and racial groups. There is a long tradition for poor families to rely on the labor of grandparents equally an adaptation to the loftier market cost of childcare, their higher than average rate of unmarried parenting, and, the need for both parents to work in the instance of intact families. Rates of custodial grandparenting are especially loftier in African-American families as a response to historically high rates of poverty and single-parenting (Uhlenberg & Kirby, 1998; Ruggles, 1994), besides as a cultural propensity for extended-familism that has roots in slavery and post-Reconstruction migration patterns. African-American families disrupted and confused by slave traders and owners adapted to their state of affairs by constructing culling family unit forms that often included a strong grandparent presence. The tradition of extended-familism was reinforced after the Ceremonious State of war, as African-Americans in the southern states of the former Confederacy moved to the cities of the north in gild to find work, often leaving children in the intendance of relatives (Jimenez, 2002).

This tradition is reflected in the proportion of African-American children being raised by grandparents. Nearly 12% of African-American children alive in grandparent-headed households as compared to only seven% of Hispanic children and 4% of not-Hispanic white children (Run across Figure). Nearly 1/3 of African-American children in grandparent-headed households alive beneath the poverty line. Hispanic and not-Hispanic white children living in grandparent-headed households are also at risk of living in poverty; however, the proportion living in poverty is much lower than that of African-American children. So, not just are African-American children more likely to live in grandparent-headed households, they are also more likely to be living in poverty.

Percent of Children <18 Living in Grandparent-Headed Households by Poverty and Race/Hispanic Origin: 2004

¹Total includes children of other race/ethnicities non detailed in chart.

Source: U.S. Demography Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2004 Panel, Wave ii, Internet Release Data: February 2008

Grandparent Provided Care a Natural Duty and a Public Good

Grandparents, particularly grandmothers, have long been a pregnant source of back up for mothers rearing dependent children. Arguments have been made that this role is the product of an evolutionary selection process by which children whose grandmothers were both altruistic and lived relatively long past their reproductive years were more likely to survive than those without such grandmothers (Hawkes et al., 1998). In contemporary nations where families alive in abject poverty, the very presence of maternal grandmothers yet has a positive influence on nutrition and survival of grandchildren (Sear, Mace & McGregor, 2000).

In the developed earth, grandparents are the natural buffers between parental inability to provide care and authorities assistance. Grandparent caregivers are oftentimes the terminal line of defence force before placement of children into the foster care system. As such, the child care labor of grandparents save the public from outlaying vast sums of money that would have been devoted to public back up of the vulnerable children nether their charge (Hughes, Waite, LaPierre, & Luo, 2007). The economic value of grandparent-provided intendance, every bit calculated by Bass & Caro in 1996 and converted into current dollars, comes to between $23.five and $39.3 billion annually; a figure, though non considered in the economic productivity of the nation, represents a substantial cost savings to the public coffer.

By almost every available measure, families in which children are being raised past grandparents are among the virtually vulnerable in the United States, over-represented by single-female parent and low income families who arrived at their status due to substance corruption, teen pregnancy, AIDS, and incarceration in the heart generation (Fuller-Thomson, Minkler & Driver, 1997; Dressel & Barnhill, 1994; Jendrek, 1994a; Minkler & Roe, 1993). Declines in the number of jobs that pay living wage and provide benefits have economically squeezed the working poor and middle-course families, such that they increasingly need to rely on extended family support. In the absence of low cost public alternatives, mothers who are employed full-time, particularly those of marginal means, are among those nearly likely to receive total-fourth dimension child care from their parents (Vandell, McCartney, Owen, Booth, & Clarke-Stewart, 2003).

Grandparent caregivers suffer college than average rates of activity limitation (Minkler & Fuller-Thomson, 1999), chronic conditions (Strawbridge, Wallhagen, Shema & Kaplan, 1997), and poor subjective well-being (Minkler & Fuller-Thomson, 1999; Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2000). The children in their care are likely to have suffered from parental abuse, neglect, instability, and/or expiry and as a event may display high levels of behavioral problems (Billing, Ehrle, & Kortenkamp, 2002; Edwards, 2006), often compounded by high rates of poverty and inadequate housing conditions (Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2003; Minkler & Fuller-Thomson, 2005; Mutchler & Baker, 2004).

Although households consisting of unmarried grandmothers raising grandchildren have even higher rates of poverty than households consisting of single mothers and their children, the participation of caregiving grandparents in public assistance programs is relatively depression (Brandon, 2005). This suggests that government programs within the Us are not adequately addressing the needs of families in which children are raised by their grandparents, despite the fact that these children and their caregiving grandparents are amongst the most vulnerable in the nation. That families in the most need receive the fewest resources brings to mind the Matthew effect (Merton, 1968), or more specifically it'south corollary that those who accept the least tend to also receive the least. In the following sections, we accost some of the reasons for this pattern of accumulating disadvantage in grandparent-custodial families and grandparent-headed households in the United States.

Macro-Theoretical Perspectives

We suggest ii macro-level theoretical perspectives in social gerontology that may accept utility for understanding the relatively new challenge of grandparent caregiving as it is situated within the larger context of the family and public policy in the United States. Taken together, these perspectives provide a theoretical framework with which to clarify the inadequacies of current policies with regard to grandparents raising grandchildren.

The first theoretical approach is that of "structural lag," a central concept of the age and social club prototype (Riley & Riley, 1994). Deriving from the age and social club paradigm in social gerontology, structural lag describes the interdependence of historic period cohorts and social structures, and especially the asynchrony between structural and individual change over time. Its major concept is that social structures cannot proceed pace with population dynamics and changes in individual lives. That is, there is mismatch between people'due south capacities and needs and the surrounding societal structures that grant opportunities to express those capacities and meet those needs. Inadequate institutional response to the childcare needs of divorced, single parent, and dual earner couples is a prime example of structural lag, as is its sequelae, the grandmothers who are raising their grandchildren without the legal protections, benefits, and publicly recognized authorization as parent. Policies are embedded in stable institutional and political arrangements that change slowly, and naturally fall behind the population changes that abruptly come into being based on relatively rapid economic and social shifts.

The second theoretical paradigm is the political economy of aging perspective (Estes, 2001; Phillipson, 2005). This perspective seeks to explain how the interaction of economical and political forces determines the unequal allocation of resource, and the consequent loss of power, autonomy and influence possessed past older individuals. Variations in the treatment and condition of those disadvantaged and marginalized by race, class, gender, and age—all relevant descriptors of the population of grandparents raising grandchildren—can exist understood past examining public policies, economical trends, and social structural factors that constrain opportunities and choices over the life-span (Estes, 2001; Phillipson, 2005). As grandparent caregivers are overwhelmingly grandmothers, more than than likely poor grandmothers, and proportionately over-represented by African-American grandmothers, it incommunicable to ignore the roles of race, class, and gender in the perpetuation of disadvantage inside families, and its reproduction across generations.

Feminist theories of aging combine with political economy to care for differential access to key material, health, and caring resources which substantially alters the experience of crumbling for women and men (Arber & Ginn, 1995). For example, from a feminist perspective, family caregiving can be understood every bit an experience of obligation, structured by the gender-based partitioning of domestic labor and the devaluing of unpaid work past public institutions (Stroller, 1993). Cultural expectations that grandmothers contribute to families every bit a matter of course with piffling need for institutional support, reflects a devaluation of poor women's domestic labor. Women remain the courage of informal caring networks, only remain disadvantaged in their accumulation of piece of work-related returns, every bit well every bit receipt of some public benefits (Heinz, 2003; Casper & Bianchi, 2002). Kin-work, for instance, does not add together to labor strength participation credits necessary for Social Security eligibility.

The American Model of Social Welfare

Although grandchild care has go more than visible in the past ten years, the issue as a public policy concern remains largely under the radar as reflected by lack of institutional recognition and support. To sympathize the failure of policy efforts on behalf of grandparent caregivers, information technology is useful to situate the trouble inside the context of American values of individualism and self-reliance, and the preferred residuum between public and private responsibilities. Ironically, grandparent caregivers receive fewer institutionally based supports than non-kin caregivers (Landry-Meyer, 1999), a consequence of U.South. cultural and political norms that privilege voluntary family contributions and sharply carve up individual family functions from the public support sector. More generally, this divide highlights the peculiar approach of the U.S. toward collective solutions to private troubles, and the view that government should minimize its intrusion into the private sphere of the family.

In the United States, a culture of competitive individualism has shaped Americans' attitudes toward the poor who are held responsible for their own destinies and every bit not having earned their right to long-term benefits (Newman, 1997; Kingson and Schulz, 1997; Cook & Barrett, 1992; Page and Shapiro, 1992). The relatively late and fragmented public response to the needs of the poor is rooted in the uniquely American arroyo to social welfare that includes an emphasis on private over public responsibility. Consequently, at that place has been a smashing reluctance to intervene in the private nature of family life. Indeed, well-nigh policies in the United States are designed to serve the vulnerable at the signal at which family and private resources take been exhausted. These values were highlighted with the Personal Responsibleness and Piece of work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 (Public Police 104–193). This reform ended entitlement to welfare benefits and imposed strict requirements for receipt of benefits, including work requirements, fourth dimension limits, and restrictions on the living arrangements of teen mothers.

To put the U.S. family policy into sharp relief, ane tin can look to the Scandinavian model of social welfare. Universal admission to publicly financed depression cost 24-hour interval care, gratis health intendance for children, and liberal parental go out benefits were instituted to reduce gender biases in the labor market, and accept the unintended benefit of largely obviating the very need for grandparent caregiving. Well-nigh single mothers or grandmothers raising children tin can manage their lives more effectively and stay employed in the labor force considering of the support provided by the state. In addition, liberal unemployment benefits and parental leave policies, and the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse as a medical (and less of a legal) problem, has reduced the need for grandparent caregiving. With this word as a framework, we examine policies (and lack thereof) that have directly or indirectly proven to disadvantage grandparent-headed families.

Policy Barriers, Gaps, and Unintended Consequences

In this section we review several of the specific manifestations of the individual/public separate in U.S. policies toward families as they apply to the needs of grandparent caregivers. Currently, the policy environment is characterized past multiple examples of barriers to admission, gaps in policy, and unintended consequences. In short, this represents the dominant paradigm in the United States designed to protect the most vulnerable families from unexpected adverse risk; that is, minimal benefits, provided within a fragmented organization, to those highly motivated to apply for them.

As mentioned to a higher place, grandparent caregivers take comparatively low receipt of public assistance despite high levels of poverty (Brandon, 2005). This is particularly truthful among caregivers raising grandchildren exterior the child welfare organization. Despite similarities in both type and level of need, caregivers whose children are not involved with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) are less probable to access formal services including respite intendance, public assist, and legal advice (Goodman, Potts, & Pasztor, 2007). This suggests substantial barriers in access to public support amidst grandparent caregivers who are informally raising their grandchildren.

Strict eligibility requirements for public help may be prohibitive for many grandparent caregivers in the U.s.. Grandparents who are otherwise eligible to collect welfare based on their own income may be discouraged by the strict piece of work requirements imposed by PWORA, either due to their prior exit from the labor force or considering of their advancing historic period, poor wellness or functional condition (Copen, 2006). In addition, grandparents who received benefits while raising their own children may be ineligible to receive funding to raise their grandchildren if they take previously exceeded the time limits imposed by welfare reform (Smith & Beltran, 2003). Grandparents may exist eligible to receive child-only payments that are exempt from these requirements; still, these benefits are much lower than family unit benefits (Smith & Beltran, 2003). As a upshot, the neediest families (e.g. chronically poor households) may actually be the to the lowest degree likely to receive benefits through this system.

Grandparents raising grandchildren have too reported much difficulty in obtaining health insurance for their grandchildren, especially those who do non have legal custody of the grandchild (Casper & Bryson, 1998; Jendrek, 1994b). Health insurance for children within the U.s. is obtained primarily through the employer of their main caregiver, with the exception of children from low-income families who are often insured through a range of need-based public health insurance programs. Difficulties in obtaining adequate insurance have been widely documented within this organization; however, the difficulties experienced by grandparents raising grandchildren have received little attending beyond a modest circumvolve of advocates, researchers, and academics. Grandparents raising grandchildren who are retired (or otherwise non employed) are unlikely to have access to a reasonably priced group program and may have to turn to an expensive individual programme if the grandchild cannot exist insured through a parent. Even grandparent caregivers who are employed may have difficulty obtaining benefits for a grandchild if their employer does not consider the grandchild a dependent. This situation is quite mutual among grandparents who are informally raising a grandchild; in fact, out of more than fifty companies surveyed by Generations United, none immune grandparents to include grandchildren on a health insurance plan unless a formal legal relationship had been established (Generations United, 2002).

Grandparents raising grandchildren are also at risk of living in inadequate housing conditions. Over xiv% of grandparent caregivers live in overcrowded housing conditions, compared with just over 4% their peers; grandparents who rent have been identified as an specially vulnerable population as nearly xxx% live in overcrowded conditions (Fuller-Thomson & Minkler, 2003). This level of overcrowding is not surprising considering that the archway of the grandchild into the household tin be unexpected and sudden; housing meant for one or two older adults of a sudden has to fulfill the needs of a family. In recent years, many states have begun to introduce public housing specifically targeted at grandparent other relative caregivers. An case of this is Grandfamilies House in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a 26-unit housing project aimed at grandparents raising grandchildren (Gottlieb & Silverstein, 2003). While programs such as this have been helpful in addressing the housing needs of grandparent caregivers, they are express in scope and are only practical for those caregivers who take permanent custody of their grandchildren. As nosotros will hash out in more detail beneath, many care arrangements are non this black and white constituting a major bulwark to this blazon of housing. In fact, problems have been reported with these programs, including how to handle tenants who alive in the housing project, simply are no longer raising a grandchild (Gottlieb & Silverstein, 2003).

Current policies in the United States are not merely restrictive in serving grandparent caregivers, they take likewise indirectly encouraged grandparent caregiving activities Current policies regarding placement preferences of kid welfare agencies, imprisonment for non-violent drug offenses, and welfare eligibility criteria either explicitly, or implicitly, rely on grandparents to take on a larger role in the lives of their grandchildren.

Grandparents take been identified every bit a preferable placement for children in the child welfare system, leading to a shift in the number of children placed in foster care as compared to the number placed in kinship care (Smith & Beltran, 2003). Clearly, this is in the best interests of most families, as well every bit for the foster care organization. Unfortunately, although grandparent caregivers are raising children who would previously accept been in the foster care arrangement, they generally receive much lower benefits than their non-kin counterparts (Landry-Meyer, 1999). As a consequence, a big economical burden has shifted directly from the government to the family.

In addition, the incarceration charge per unit has been steadily increasing in the United States over the past decade, particularly amidst women. The number of females in country or federal prison grew by nearly 20% between 2000 and 2006, while the number of females in local prisons grew by approximately forty% (Sabol, Minton, & Harrison, 2007). Much of this increase has been attributed to strict policies within the U.Due south. regarding non-tearing drug offenses and mandatory minimum sentencing (Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2004; Greenfeld & Snell, 1999). The majority of children with incarcerated mothers are cared for by grandparents; in fact, over half of children are in the care of their grandparents as compared to only 28% in the care of another parent and less than 10% in foster intendance (Mumola, 2000). In many cases, these grandparents may accept prevented placement in the foster care arrangement upon the imprisonment of the mother.

Welfare reform has also had several unintended consequences for grandparents raising grandchildren. As office of PRWORA, teen mothers are required to live an adult-supervised household in order to receive benefits (Eshbaugh, 2008; Smith & Beltran, 2003). This reform was put in place primarily as a deterrent to teen pregnancy; yet, this requirement substantially forced grandparents to take on partial or total parental responsibility for their grandchildren. While many grandparents would have chosen this path regardless of the policies in identify, this still represents a strong value statement; that is, if mothers are unable to fully provide for their children, it is the duty of grandparents to step in and fill those gaps before the government will provide supplemental support.

Welfare reform also imposed new piece of work requirements and time limits on those receiving welfare benefits. Of interest in this discussion is the influence of the five yr time-limit on benefits and welfare-to-piece of work policies on the provision of grandparent care and the germination of multigenerational households. Unfortunately, little enquiry has attempted to necktie welfare reform to the provision of grandparent care and the formation of multi-generational households; therefore, we can just speculate equally to the possible furnishings. Given single mothers' heavy reliance on public help (Brandon, 2005) and the heavy reliance of low-income working mothers on grandparental assistance (Vandell et al., 2003), it stands to reason that the work requirements of PWORA must have contributed to an increase in grandparent provided care, particularly that of total-time daycare. Similarly, information technology is unclear to what extent multigenerational households may have been formed to address 1) work-family unit conflicts experienced past single mothers as a result of welfare work requirements and 2) loss of welfare benefits for those who either did not meet work requirements or became ineligible for benefits later five years in the system (the current time limit for receipt of cash benefits). The formation of multigenerational households has long been a strategy used past families of low socioeconomic status to combat economic difficulties (Affections & Tienda, 1982); in fact, fiscal difficulties take been cited every bit a common reason for coresidence within three-generation families (Goodman & Silverstein, 2002).

The Continuum of Grandparent Care

Why have effective grandparent caregiver policies been and so hard to develop? Whereas public policies are designed to categorically serve eligible beneficiaries, the category of grandparent caregivers oft has ambiguous boundaries and is often transitional in nature. In part, difficulties in developing sensible policies to serve custodial grandparents must come to terms with the definition of the situation of these grandparents who are plagued past volatile, uncertain, and highly dynamic family conditions.

Caregiving grandparents generally live in one of two household configurations: (1) skipped-generation households in which grandparents are raising grandchildren in the absence of the centre-generation, and (two) three-generation or co-parenting households in which a grandparent is raising a grandchild while co-residing with the middle-generation. Assumptions are fabricated about the type and level of care provided by the grandparent based primarily on residential circumstances of the grandchild's parent: Grandparents in skipped-generation households generally have the largest brunt of care, while those in three-generation households are likely to be sharing parental responsibility with the parent. However, nosotros argue that this categorization does not effectively address the complex system of parental and grandparental interest in the provision of care.

The public often views grandparents raising grandchildren as distinct from "traditional" companionate grandparents. The role of "grandparent caregiver" conjures upward images of the heroic grandmother who permanently steps into the parental role in the absence of the middle generation. To be sure, this is an accurate portrait of many grandparent caregivers. However, on closer exam, custodial grandparents reveal themselves to be part of a continuum of intendance that ebbs and flows with the needs and bug in the middle generation. Skipped generation households may become three-generation households and back again, and custodial grandparents may evolve into co-parents if adult children return or become more than involved in kid rearing, simply to revert back to being in the custodial office.

There is evidence that in three-generation households, many grandparents take on a large share of parental responsibility, even claiming master responsibility for grandchildren despite parental presence in the household (Lee, Ensminger, & LaVeist, 2005; Mutchler & Baker, 2004). In some cases, parents may in fact be transient members of the household, while grandparents are the stable parental force within the household. In other cases, co-resident parents may be unable or unwilling to effectively contribute to parental responsibilities; examples of this may include developmental disability, teen pregnancy, drug/alcohol abuse, or incapacitation due to affliction. A salient case is the example of grandparents raising grandchildren as a result of the AIDS epidemic. In that location is evidence that grandparents take on substantial responsibility for the children of HIV infected parents, including assuming custody, even while the parent is however live (Cowgill et al., 2007). Conspicuously, at least in the advanced stages of the disease, these grandparents are non sharing parental responsibleness with co-resident parents; rather, they are simultaneously raising their grandchild and caregiving for their dying kid.

Conversely, many skipped-generation households have a loftier level of contact with the parental generation. About two/iii of grandparents raising grandchildren in these households report at to the lowest degree daily contact with the parent (Bakery, 2006). Might this lead to shared parental responsibility, even in the residential absenteeism of a parent? Data from the U.S. Decennial Census reveals that there are a number of grandparents within skipped-generation households who do not claim master responsibility for their co-resident grandchild(ren), despite a lack of other plausible caregivers inside the household (Mutchler & Bakery, 2004). Might the middle-generation in some of these households be parenting from a distance?

Prior enquiry suggests that many grandparent intendance households may be formed in response to stagnant economic conditions - specially in rural areas - in which the parents are not able to provide enough fiscal support for their dependent children. In some cases, the middle-generation may exist forced to migrate to another state or region with higher employment and improve educational opportunities (Kropf & Robison, 2004). In such instances, developed children will often transport remittances to their parents to help out with their expenses and those of children in their care.

Finally, grandparents may also provide a substantial amount of intendance for grandchildren from outside the household. This is particularly mutual amid African-American grandmothers who have been shown to report relatively loftier levels of parental responsibleness for grandchildren regardless of co-residence (Lee, Ensminger, & LaVeist, 2005). Providing high levels of intendance for grandchildren from outside the household has been associated with increases in depressive symptoms (Minkler & Fuller-Thomson, 2001) and coronary heart disease (Lee, Colditz, Berkman, & Kawachi, 2003). Given these findings, information technology is clear that grandparents who provide high levels of care from outside the dwelling may experience similar hardship as compared to custodial grandparent caregivers.

Complicating this issue is the fact that living arrangements inside these households are quite often fluid and informally bundled. Grandparents raising grandchildren are likely to motility in and out of the grandparent caregiver role throughout their life depending on the needs of adult children and grandchildren (Lee, Ensminger, & LaVeist, 2005). Due in part to this fluidity of household arrangements, grandparents raising grandchildren frequently do not have a formal legal human relationship with their grandchild, creating challenges when navigating the circuitous bureaucracies that involve the schooling, health care, and income maintenance benefits for the child (Landry-Meyer, 1999).

Discussion

In this commodity we discussed several of the structural and ideological barriers to effectively serving grandparents who are raising their grandchildren within the The states. We are unabashed in acknowledging that these often heroic grandparents, more often than not grandmothers, perform a public role that deserve country support. From a conservative perspective, public support would strengthen families and potentially increment the healthy development of ii generations with long-term cost benefits.

Given the current economic and political environs inside the United States, the current style of advancement is likely the most expedient route to provide needed services for grandparent caregivers. Merely is this method a bit like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? Given that family structures are changing and multigenerational households are becoming more common, can we really go on with policies that do not recognize this diversity?

Definitions of "the family" that idealize past, and nigh likely forgone, kinship structures impede the development of policies that serve families as they are currently configured. Conceptions of the modal family as nuclear with 2 opposite-sex parents and dependent children is now outdated, and policies based on this model are leap to under-serve families with culling structures. Families under stress and duress adapt by expanding beyond the nuclear family unit construction to involve a variety of kin and non-kin relationships. This shifting nature of family unit types makes policy formation difficult, specially in the United States given the strict eligibility requirements for many public programs. Revising stagnant social policies toward families will require a redefinition of the family to one that is less spring by residence and biology, to 1 based more than on function. Is this possible in the brusque-term?

While a culture change in the U.S. is certainly possible, it will exist slow in coming. A more pragmatic strategy to produce more firsthand results would be to offer policies that are isomorphic with electric current cultural values. Following are a set of policy recommendations for maximizing back up bachelor to grandparent caregivers that respond to these changing realities, but that are besides sensitive to the American social and political context.

Since many grandparents raising grandchildren are currently working, they may experience high levels of work/family conflict. Consequently, one of the nearly widely reported needs of grandparent caregivers is that of respite care, a service that has relatively low cost. Government can provide incentives to employers who offer flexible work schedules and weather condition to conform workers who have family intendance responsibilities. A family unit-exit policy that does not explicitly or implicitly penalize workers for taking time off to care for family members should be promoted, recognizing that relief for caregivers provides real benefits for the workplace by increasing worker productivity, for society by advancing disinterestedness for the working poor, and for the family by promoting the healthy development of all generations in the family.

Policies that crave niggling programmatic interventions include providing economic relief through tax credits, or by paying caregivers directly for their services at a rate commensurate with foster intendance. Paying caregivers, despite claims of its inefficiency in paying family unit members for what they would do for costless anyway, may be successful at reducing burdens faced by grandparent caregivers, reinforce their good volition, and contribution to kid welfare.

Countervailing trends are formidable. In about Western nations in that location has been a retrenchment of social welfare programs, as governments seek to reduce their commitments to the dependent population and shift more than responsibility to families (Parrott, Mills and Bengtson, 2000, O'Rand 2003). The part of regime in providing for its most vulnerable citizens has tended to weaken (Estes, 2003; Phillipson, 2003). Policymakers are nether increasing pressure to employ market principles in the pattern of social policies while placing restrictions on public welfare programs. Macro-economical restructuring and trends toward the individualization of risk (O'Rand, 2003) take permeated all social institutions, creating tensions between public and private sources of support for the vulnerable of society (Giddens, 1991).

Nonetheless, there are promising signs at the grass-roots level. The result of grandparents raising grandchildren has initiated a public dialogue amidst older persons, service providers interest groups, and policy researchers, leading to a range of customs support programs and nascent advancement groups. On residuum, nosotros see more hope for optimism than for pessimism with regard to advancing the social benefits that might get available to families in which grandparents are raising their grandchildren. This issue has attracted the attention of crumbling service professionals, leading to the involvement of the federal Assistants on Aging and several interest groups, including AARP and Generations United. Cooperation between researcher, practitioner, and advocacy communities resulted in a variety of customs, country, and federal programs, most notably provisions for grandparent caregivers through the 2000 amendments to the Older Americans Act under the National Family unit Caregiver Back up plan. This program at present provides funding for respite care, back up groups, and other services relevant to grandparents raising grandchildren (Smith & Beltran, 2003), a straight outcome of the efforts of grandparent caregiver advocates. Clearly, significant advances have been made in meeting the needs of grandparent caregivers thanks to the work of these advocates; however, much notwithstanding needs to be done in developing family unit policies that are capable of benefiting all generations in all types of families.

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