To grandmother’s house you go? Not far, for most US grandkids

New more precise estimates show that most American grandchildren live near a grandparent, with implications for the well-being of families and for time and generations of time and money.

The analysis of Cornell researchers revealed that almost half of American grandchildren (47%) live less than 10 miles from a grandparent. Among these, important figures live even closer: 21% live between 1 and 5 miles and 13% live at a distance accessible on foot of 1 mile. Like many grandchildren live less than 1 mile from their grandparents at 500 miles or more.

Families living closer to grandparents tend to have a lower socioeconomic status, have noted the researchers, with parents who, on average, have less education and lower income and are less likely to be married. These households help grandparents and receive more aid from grandparents, but the distance does not affect the amount of money that families exchange.

“A significant number of grandchildren live very close to a grandparent,” said Rachel Duvifon, Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology. “In addition, our results reveal that the characteristics of families living very close to grandparents differ from the characteristics of those who live a little further.”

Duver is the co-author of “the space proximity of grandchildren with grandparents and intergenerational support in the United States”, published in Demographic researchWith Olivia Healy ’12, assistant professor of economics at Elon University.

Most previous research has examined less detailed measures of the distance between grandparents and grandchildren, measuring “narrow” proximity as in the 25 to 30 miles, and therefore not identifying a significant variation among the large number of children who live in this range. The work also provides a more up-to-date analysis than previous estimates of the proximity of grandparents, which date from the 1990s.

The new study has exploited an American representative sample at the national level of the study of the income dynamics, a longitudinal longitudinal survey, including detailed geographic location data measured at the level of the census block, which allowed a very precise measure of the distance between grandparents and grandchildren. The researchers analyzed nearly 2,000 households with at least one child under the age of 18 at home and at least a living grandparent living elsewhere.

“These finer spatial data reveal a considerable variation at the beach closest to the geographic scale, including the missed details in the analyzes where those who live in larger geographic distances have been grouped,” said Duver.

As you would expect, families living closer to spending more time together. But the rate is much higher among families who live less than 1 mile from others than for those of 5 or 10 miles further.

“This suggests that family members living nearby are strongly anchored in the life of the other,” said Duver. “This is a group worthy of a more in-depth study, to understand how they select these life agreements and what are the implications for functioning and family well-being.”

The researchers hypothesized that grandparents who live far from their grandchildren can compensate for the limited time together by giving them more money-but results have shown that this was not the case. The authors speculate that this may be due to the fact that families who live further from grandparents have higher income and more education, and are probably more self-sufficient.

Overall, the grandparents give more time and money to the families of the grandchildren than they receive. Among 1 to 5 miles from the other households, for example, the grandparents have provided an average of 186 hours of aid and $ 800 in financial support, while receiving 104 hours and $ 500. Previous research which did not consider the grandchildren had calculated equal transfers.

Given that a significant amount of time that grandparents contribute probably involves childcare services, their researchers said, their more detailed proximity analysis potentially has implications for the well-being of the three generations. Grandparents living nearby could benefit grandchildren by providing stable guard services; Their parents, who may need support while working; And the grandparents themselves, because there is evidence that spending time with grandchildren improves well-being.

“We highlight the large number of grandchildren living near their grandparents,” said Duvuni, “and demonstrates that geographic distance, on a very fine scale, is linked to significant time investments in and from households.”