Grandparenting Practices Around the World

Virpi Timonen is Professor in Social Policy and Ageing at Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on the sociology of ageing and social policies as they are unfolding in ageing societies. She has an interest in the life course from youth to old age, especially in the context of intergenerational relations within families and societies.

• Introduction: Widening the lens on grandparenting ~ By Virpi Timonen;Section 1: The demographic and welfare state contexts of grandparenting;The demography of grandparenthood in Europe and North America ~ by Rachel Margolis and Bruno Arpino;Grandparental childcare: A re-conceptualisation of family policy regimes ~ by Debora Price, Eloi Ribe, Giorgio Di Gessa and Karen Glaser;Section 2: Grandparenting in contexts of economic and societal development; Grandparenting in developing Southeast Asia: Comparative perspectives from Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam ~ by John Knodel and Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan;Second parenthood realities, Third Age ideals: (grand)parenthood in the context of poverty and HIV/AIDS ~ by Jaco Hoffman;Section 3: Transnational grandparenting;Transnational grandparenting: The intersection of transnationalism and translocality ~ Yanqiu Rachel Zhou;Transnational grandmother-grandchild relationships in the context of migration from Lithuania to Ireland ~ by Dovile Vildaite;Section 4: Gender, intersectionalities and grandparentingThe composition of grandparent childcare: Gendered patterns in cross-national perspective ~ by Lyn Craig, Myra Hamilton and Judith E. Brown;Class-based grandfathering practices in Finland ~ by Hanna Ojala and Ilkka Pietila;Grandfamilies in the United States: An intersectional analysis by Megan Dolbin-MacNab and April Few Demo;Section 5: Grandparental roles, agency and influence;How grandparents influence the religiosity of their grandchildren: a mixed methods study of three-generation families in the United States ~ by Vern Bengtson and Merril Silverstein;Can Chinese grandparents say no? A comparison of grandmothers in two Asian cities ~ by Esther C. L. Goh and Shengli Wang;“I am not that type of a grandparent”: (non-) compliance with the grandmother archetype among contemporary Czech grandparents ~ Lucie Galčanová and Lucie Vidovićová;Conclusions ~ by Virpi Timonen.

"This book significantly advances understanding of grandparenthood in internationally comparative perspective. Analyses of gendered and transnational grandparenthood are particularly insightful. The concept of intersectionality is skillfully applied to examine how multigenerational family relationships are socially structured and constructed." Anne Martin-Matthews, University of British Columbia