The role of fertility in the demography of grandparenthood: evidence from Italy
Grandparents play an important role in their family’s lives. However, little is known about the demography of grandparenthood. Given dramatic recent changes in fertility, we explore the role of number of children and age at first birth in the timing of the transition into grandparenthood focusing on...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2022 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Pompeu Fabra |
| Repositorio: | Repositorio Digital de la UPF |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/56904 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56904 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12062-020-09310-6 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Transition to grandparenthood Fertility profile Median age at grandparenthood Number of children Age at first birth Becoming a grandparent |
| Sumario: | Grandparents play an important role in their family’s lives. However, little is known about the demography of grandparenthood. Given dramatic recent changes in fertility, we explore the role of number of children and age at first birth in the timing of the transition into grandparenthood focusing on Italy, a country with well-known North-South fertility differentials. We used data from the 2009 Italian Survey ‘Family and Social Relations’ (N = 10,186) to estimate median ages of grandparenthood across three birth cohorts of parents (1920–29; 1930–39; 1940–49). Findings show an overall postponement of age of grandparenthood of 5 years, shifting for women from early to mid- or late-50s (in the South and North, respectively). Such postponement is largely driven by family compositional changes: although the age of grandparenthood among mothers of three or more children has not changed much over cohorts, the percentage of mothers with such characteristic decreased significantly. The heterogeneity in experiencing the transition to grandparenthood has implications for intergenerational transfers and other roles in later life. |
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