Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Title
Evolutionary Human Sciences
Volume
6
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
School
School of Medical and Health Sciences
RAS ID
70139
Funders
Academy of Finland
Grant Number
345183, 345546, 325857, 331400, 338869
Abstract
The prevalence of divorce in both parental and grandparental generations has led to a rise in the number of children who now have families that include both biological and step-grandparents. Despite the thorough examination of biological grandparents' contributions in the recent literature, there remains a scarcity of studies focusing on the investment of step-grandparents. Using population-based data from a sample of 2494 parents in Germany, we assessed grandparental investment through financial support and assistance with childcare of grandparents (N = 4238) and step-grandparents (N = 486). The study revealed that step-grandparents provided lower levels of investment in their grandchildren compared with biological grandparents. Furthermore, the study identified that a longer duration of co-residence between step-grandparents and parents earlier in life did not correspond to an increase or decrease in step-grandparental investment. However, investment by separated biological grandparents increased with the increasing length of co-residence with parents. In line with the scarce literature on step-grandparental investment, these findings indicate that mating effort may be the most important motivation for step-grandparental investment.
DOI
10.1017/ehs.2024.17
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Comments
Pettay, J. E., Coall, D. A., Danielsbacka, M., & Tanskanen, A. O. (2024). The role of mating effort and co-residence history in step-grandparental investment. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 6, e27. https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2024.17