Nearly 6 million grandparents live in the same house hold with their grandchildren in the United States, and 40 percent of those grandparents are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren.
One-third of grandparent care givers live in “skipped generation” households, where neither parent of the grandchildren is present.
The data, based on the 2000 Census, was released by the U.S. Census Bureau at a conference in Alexandria, Va.
The report, “Grandparents Living with Grandchildren: 2000,” shows the geographic distribution of grandparents living with grandchildren and serving as caregivers. It also shows the length of time the grandparents cared for the grandchildren.
Report highlights:
Nineteen percent of grandparent care-givers were living in poverty in 1999.
The highest proportion of grandparent caregivers in poverty was in the South (21 percent), and the lowest proportions were in the West (16 percent) and the Midwest (15 percent).
Almost all grandparents who were acting as caregivers for grandchildren were either the household or the householder’s spouse (94).
Those grandparents younger than 60 were more likely to be grandparent caregivers than were grandparents age 60 and over.
Racial and ethnic differences were prominent among caregiving grandparents.
Nonwhite grandparents were at least three times more likely to be live-in caregivers than (non-Hispanic) white grandparents.
Although the majority of grandparents living with grandchildren were (non-Hispanic) white (2.7 million), they comprised only 2 percent of the non-Hispanic white population age 30 and over.
By comparison, 6 percent to 10 percent of other racial and ethnic groups lived with their grandchildren.
(ABP)
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