Parental Divorce, Residence Arrangements, and Contact Between Grandchildren and Grandparents

• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Jan Van Bavel,Maaike Jappens
• Date: 01 April 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12275

M J Vrije Universiteit Brussel

J V B University of Leuven (KU Leuven)∗

Parental Divorce, Residence Arrangements, and

Contact Between Grandchildren and Grandparents

When parents divorce, grandparents can play

a supportive role in the lives of their grand-

children, but a parental divorce may also put

grandchild–grandparent ties under pressure. In

this study the authors investigated how grand-

children of married and divorced parents differ

in the frequency of face-to-face contacts with

grandparents and how this is mediated by post-

divorce residence arrangements. Based on the

multi-actor survey “Divorce in Flanders,” they

used reports of contact provided by more than

1,000 grandchildren and compared them with

more than 1,100 grandparent reports for vali-

dation. The results showed that grandchildren

from divorced parents have fewer contacts with

their grandparents than grandchildren whose

parents are married but that it is the postdi-

vorce residence arrangement of grandchildren

that produces this result. When grandchildren

live with their divorced father or in a shared

residence arrangement, they even see paternal

grandparents more often than grandchildren

with married parents.

Twentieth-century family sociology has focused

very much on the nuclear family and conjugal

bonds (Bengtson, 2001; Segalen, 2010).

Interface Demography, Vrije UniversiteitBrussel, Pleinlaan

5, 1050 Brussels, Belgium (maaike.jappens@vub.ac.be).

∗Family & Population Studies, University of Leuven,

Parkstraat 45, Bus 3601, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.

This article was edited by Linda Waite.

Key Words: child custody, co-parenting,divorce, grandchil-

dren, grandparents, intergenerationalrelations.

Although there are notable exceptions (includ-

ing Bengtson & Robertson, 1985, and Cherlin

& Furstenberg, 1986), there has been much

less research on grandparents. Attias-Donfut

and Segalen (2007) argued that this emphasis

is closely linked to the idea that raising chil-

dren is the responsibility of the parents and that

grandparents ought not to get involvedtoo much.

Grandparenthood has been receiving more

attention in the literature in recent years (e.g.,

Arber & Timonen, 2012; Attias-Donfut &

Segalen, 2007; Szinovácz, 1998). At least two

social developments may be connected with this

upturn of scientic interest. First, demographic

changes of the past few decades have given

more room to grandparent–grandchild relations.

Greater longevity implies that more people now

become a grandparent and often survive into

the adult life span of their grandchildren. At

the same time, lower fertility rates in subse-

quent generations translate into a lower ratio

of grandchildren to grandparents and potential

greater time and attention for each grandchild

(Arber & Timonen, 2012; Szinovácz, 1998;

Uhlenberg & Kirby, 1998). A second major

development involves the widespread increase

in divorce rates. The implication of divorce

for grandparent–grandchild relationships is the

focus of this study.

Some scholars note that divorce may raise the

risk of extended family ties being weakened, or

even severed (Attias-Donfut & Segalen, 2007;

Dykstra & Komter, 2012; Timonen, Doyle, &

O’Dwyer, 2009), but others emphasize that the

vulnerability of conjugal relations and nuclear

families makes intergenerational family ties

Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (April 2016): 451–467 451

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12275

452 Journal of Marriage and Family

become ever more important to fulll essen-

tial family functions. In this sense, the rise in

divorce rates is expected to raise the involvement

of grandparents in supporting and socializing

grandchildren (Bengtson, 2001; Johnson, 1998;

Thompson, 1999).

Scientic evidence on the implications of

a parental divorce for grandparent–grandchild

relations is limited. The existing literature sug-

gests that grandparents may be an important

source of support for their grandchildren, par-

ticularly in times of a family crisis such as a

parental divorce. They may provide practical

and nancial help as well as emotional stabil-

ity (Bridges, Roe, Dunn, & O’Connor, 2007;

Ferguson, 2004). In regard to children, some

studies have shown that a close relationship

with grandparents is associated with lower lev-

els of psychological adjustment problems after

parental divorce (Henderson, Hayslip, Sanders,

& Louden, 2009; Lussier, Deater-Deckard,

Dunn, & Davies, 2002). Conversely, for grand-

parents, disruption of contact with grandchildren

has been found to have an adverse impact on

emotional health (Doyle, O’Dywer, & Timonen,

2010; L. M. Drew & Silverstein, 2007).

Exchange of support between grandparents

and grandchildren is strongly conditioned by

the frequency of face-to-face contact. Contact

increases the likelihood of exchange of help

in kind, not only because it reduces the costs

of giving help but also because it makes the

support provider aware of the recipient’s needs

(Dykstra & Fokkema, 2011). The existing stud-

ies have reported less frequent contact between

grandparents and grandchildren following

parental divorce. This is particularly the case for

paternal grandparents, which is also the group

most at risk for losing all contact (Creasey,

1993; L. A. Drew & Smith, 1999; Geurts,

Poortman, van Tilburg, & Dykstra, 2009;

Jaskowski & Dellasega, 1993; Kemp, 2007;

Myers & Perrin, 1993; Oppelaar & Dykstra,

2004). For contacts with maternal grandpar-

ents, some studies have reported no impact of

divorce (Cooney & Smith, 1996; Henderson

et al., 2009), and Ehrenberg and Smith (2003)

even found higher contact frequency between

grandchildren and maternal grandmothers after

divorce.

Some scholars attribute this inconsistency to

the matrifocal bias that is generally found in kin

relations. Because women tend to invest more

in family relations than men they are consid-

ered to be the traditional kinkeepers in Western

cultures. Hence, maternal family relations are

usually stronger, and grandchildren have more

contact with maternal than paternal grandpar-

ents (Chan & Elder, 2000; Uhlenberg & Ham-

mill, 1998). After a divorce in the parent genera-

tion, this matrifocal bias would persist (Douglas

& Ferguson, 2003; Doyle et al., 2010) or even

be accentuated, as paternal grandparents can no

longer count on the mother as the kinkeeper

(Hagestad, 1985).

Other authors have argued that the postdi-

vorce residence arrangements of grandchildren

may play a major role in the differential impact

on contacts with maternal as compared to

paternal grandparents. Because children usually

reside with a custodial mother after a divorce,

grandparents on the father’s side in particular

get fewer chances to see their grandchildren

(Ferguson, 2004; Johnson, 1998; Kemp, 2007;

Schutter, Scherman, & Carroll, 1997); however,

only a few studies (Hilton & Macari, 1998;

Jappens & Van Bavel, 2012; Weston, 1992;

Westphal, Poortman, & van der Lippe, 2015)

have been able to empirically explore this

explanation.

In this study we investigated the associa-

tions of a parental divorce and the subsequent

residence arrangements with the frequency of

face-to-face contacts between grandchildren and

grandparents. Compared to grandchildren with

married parents, do grandparents and grand-

children have fewer contacts when the par-

ents are divorced? Is this especially the case

for paternal grandparents? And can this dif-

ference be explained by children’s residence

arrangements after the parental divorce? Pres-

sure groups of grandparents have claimed that

a shared residence arrangement is benecial

for grandparent–grandchild contact, in particu-

lar because it avoids the exclusion of paternal

grandparents (Kaganas, 2007). So far, this claim

has received little empirical attention. We used

data from a large-scale representative study to

test this, namely,the multi-actor survey “Divorce

in Flanders” (DiF; Mortelmans et al., 2011).

Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, pro-

vides a particularly interesting context in which

to study these questions because recent pol-

icy changes have been effective in stimulating

shared physical custody arrangements, with chil-

dren living about half of the time with each