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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2026 Feb 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Fam Psychol. 2024 Oct 10;39(1):65–76. doi: 10.1037/fam0001274

Grandparent Support Moderates the Relation between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Cognitive Development

Virginia Tompkins 1, Xin Feng 2
PMCID: PMC11957727  NIHMSID: NIHMS2056827  PMID: 39388135

Abstract

Grandparents support American families in many ways, but they have often been overlooked in research on typical families (e.g., parents raising children). We examined whether grandparents have a positive influence on children’s development by buffering the relation between parents’ socioeconomic status (SES) and children’s cognitive development. Parents (N=437) from 45 U.S. states reported on 1,047 grandparent relationships with their 3- to 5-year-old children (Mage = 4.18 years) and how helpful grandparents are regarding financial, instrumental, emotional, and informational support, which were summed together across all grandparent relationships. We found that SES (a composite of family income and parents’ average education) was significantly related to preschoolers’ cognitive development (a composite of receptive and expressive language, literacy, and numbers). However, this relation was weaker when grandparents provided a higher level of support. Most families received grandparent support of basic child needs (e.g., clothing) and educational resources that could contribute to children’s cognitive development (e.g., books). Grandparents provided greater financial, instrumental, emotional, and informational support to parents when they were emotionally close to the grandchild and interacted frequently. However, only emotional support was related to the geographical distance to the grandchild. These results suggest that even in parent-led American families, grandparents play a supportive, buffering role against the potential negative effects of lower SES on children’s cognitive development.

Keywords: socioeconomic status, grandparents, support, early childhood, cognitive development

SES and Children’s Cognitive Development

Socioeconomic status (SES) in early childhood has a significant impact on children’s cognitive development (Letourneau et al., 2013). This SES-achievement gap is concerning because lower SES children begin school at an academic disadvantage, for example, in reading and math (e.g., Lee & Burkam, 2002). Thus, researchers are interested in identifying modifiable factors that could reduce the relation between family SES and children’s cognitive development (Lurie et al., 2021). Though many studies have focused on parents (e.g., cognitive stimulation; Lurie et al., 2021), an unexplored source of support that may alleviate the negative effects of lower SES is the role of grandparent support to families, which is the focus of the current study. We first review the research on SES and children’s cognitive development, then turn to the specific role grandparents may play in this relation.

SES is typically defined as a composite of at least two variables, for example family income, parental education, parental employment status, or parental marital status (Letourneau et al., 2013). In the current study, we measured SES as a composite of family income and parent education because they tend to be significantly related, are often used in combination to predict children’s cognitive development (e.g., Hartas, 2011; Violato et al., 2011), and relations with children’s cognitive development do not differ whether parents’ education, income, or both are used (see Liu et al., 2020 for a meta-analysis). Specifically, researchers find that these measures of SES (composites or individual measures) are significantly correlated with young children’s receptive and expressive vocabulary, literacy skills, and math achievement (e.g., DeFlorio & Beliakoff, 2015; Letourneau et al., 2013; Slusser et al., 2019; Vernon-Feagans et al., 2020; Violato et al., 2011; Zuilkowski et al., 2019).

Lower SES negatively impacts children’s cognition through a variety of mechanisms, including fewer family resources, lower social support, or poorer mental health of parents (Letourneau et al., 2013). Though we did not analyze income and education separately, prior research often makes distinctions in how parent education and income relate to family processes. According to the parental investment theory (Becker & Tomes, 1986), family income is related to child development because it provides the tangible means for parents to invest in the resources, services, and time that are needed for children’s optimal development. Lower income may reflect fewer tangible resources that would impact children’s cognitive development (e.g., fewer books). Similarly, parent education may indirectly influence children’s cognitive development because parents with higher levels of education tend to be more knowledgeable about child development and create environments that enhance children’s early learning, such as a supportive home literacy environment, more frequent and sophisticated parent-child talk, and greater math language and instruction (DeFlorio & Beliakoff, 2015; Hartas, 2011; Luo et al., 2021; Lurie et al., 2021; Slusser et al., 2019; Vernon-Feagans et al., 2020).

However, researchers also sometimes fail to find significant associations between SES and children’s cognitive development, or the relations are weak (e.g., Blau, 1999; Letourneau et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2020; Slusser et al., 2019; Violato et al., 2011). Blau (1999) argues that this is because family characteristics play a larger role than SES per se. Although lower SES is linked to fewer resources, there may be other contextual factors that ameliorate or exacerbate the impact that these adversities have on children’s cognitive development. Grandparent support is an unexplored moderator of the association between SES and young children’s cognitive development. That is, a higher level of grandparent support may attenuate the link between lower SES and lower cognitive development in early childhood (i.e., the first five years of life), a hypothesis examined in the current study.

Grandparent Support

Why grandparents? Grandparents are a main source of social support for parents. They are more likely to provide support than other family members or friends and provide the highest level of support to grandchildren after parents (Van Heerden & Wild, 2019). Because grandparents today are living longer and have greater financial resources than in the past, grandparents tend to provide substantial support to their adult children and grandchildren (Dukhovnov & Zagheni, 2015; Margolis & Wright, 2017). Although the age of first birth is increasing in the United States (U.S.), so is average longevity, resulting in more children knowing their grandparents than in the early 20th century (Margolis & Wright, 2017). The time and money American parents spend on raising children has increased in recent decades (Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2020) and American parents also report being more exhausted from raising children than mothers in the 1970s (Nomaguchi & Fettro, 2018). Thus, having helpful and supportive grandparents may help to alleviate the time, money, and emotional burdens that can have a negative impact on parent-child relationships.

Grandparents step in to offer support when needed (Dunifon et al., 2018), providing support in at least four ways. Grandparents provide 1) financial support through direct financial assistance to parents and provisions for grandchildren that reduce the costs of parenthood, such as shoes and clothing (Fingerman et al., 2015; Gray & Brogdon, 2017; Pessin et al., 2022). Grandparents provide 2) instrumental support by providing childcare while parents work (e.g., Condon et al., 2013; Dukhovnov & Zagheni, 2015; Dunifon et al., 2018; Jappens & van Bavel, 2012). Grandparents also help parents around the house, such as housework and home repairs (Dukhovnov & Zagheni, 2015; Dunifon et al., 2018). Grandparents provide 3) emotional support, for example by listening to and empathizing with parents (e.g., Fingerman et al., 2015; Van Heerden & Wild, 2018). Finally, grandparents provide 4) informational support, such as giving childrearing advice (Van Holland De Graaf et al., 2018; Fingerman et al., 2015). For example, grandparents may give advice on feeding, discipline, or health-related information.

Grandparent Support as a Moderator SES and Children’s Cognitive Development

As Parkes et al. (2015) noted, studies of social support for parents within the general populations are scarce. Much of the work on grandparent support has focused on grandparents supporting parents with children with disabilities (e.g., Trute, 2003) or grandparents raising grandchildren (e.g., Musil et al., 2009). There may be less research on grandparents’ role in parent-headed families given the assumption that parents bear the responsibility for the care of children in the U.S. Yet, ecological systems theory asserts that children develop within a broader context of environmental, social, and cultural influences (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). When grandparents do not reside with grandchildren, they would be considered part of the child’s mesosystem—the bridge between the microsystem (e.g., the child’s parents) and outer influences on the child. According to this theory, if the mesosystem is strong (e.g., good social support), the child is buffered from external forces that can have a negative impact on families, such as poverty (Hayslip & Furhauf, 2019). Although there are norms in Western cultures regarding adult independence from their parents and parents as gatekeepers between their children and grandparents (Condon et al., 2013), grandparents may still support their families. Specifically, we propose that when grandparents provide a high level of support, there should be a weaker association between SES and child cognitive development. Though we did not examine mechanisms directly, this may be because grandparents provide instrumental or financial resources that free up financial resources in families (e.g., reduce childcare costs) that can be redirected to children or because grandparents provide emotional and informational support that reduces the burden of parenting and thus contributes to more positive parent-child interactions.

We are unaware of research examining grandparents as a buffer between parents’ SES and children’s cognitive development. However, Berkowitz (2021) recently found that the association between SES and literacy scores of 5th and 8th graders was weaker when schools had a more positive social climate. Though not focused on grandparents, these findings demonstrate that supportive relationships can compensate for the effect of a lower SES background on children’s academic success. A strengths-based approach (McCashen, 2017) to child and community development emphasizes what’s strong, not what’s wrong, and focuses on families’ strengths, assets, and resources already available to them. Family strengths come from many places—parents’ relationships with one another, their neighborhood and community, family finances, and health (Walsh et al., 2020). However, surprisingly little research includes grandparents as a potential strength.

Correlates of Grandparent Support

Finally, if grandparent support matters for the SES-child cognition relation, it is also relevant to understand factors that are associated with grandparent support—geographical proximity, emotional closeness to the grandchild, and frequency of contact with the grandchild. In terms of geographical proximity, Snopkowski and Sear (2016) found that grandparents provided more childcare when they lived closer to grandchildren. However, even when parents do not live close to their grandchildren, they still may provide financial assistance, give advice, or provide emotional support. Thus, we expect that the distance between grandparents and their grandchild will be more strongly related to the level of instrumental support they provide than to financial, emotional, or informational support. Regarding emotional closeness and contact frequency with the grandchild, prior research has typically focused on closeness between parent (not grandchild) and grandparent (e.g., Trute, 2003; Trute et al., 2008) and the relation between emotional closeness and child outcomes (e.g., Van Heerden & Wild, 2018). However, we expect that grandparent closeness and contact frequency to the grandchild also matters and is likely related to grandparent support of parents. Although these factors are secondary to our focus on grandparents as buffering the SES-children’s cognitive development relation, they provide important context to understanding when grandparents provide more support to typical parent-headed families. For example, does grandparent support relate to closeness—in geography, emotional closeness to the child, or contact frequency?

The Current Study

The current study examined grandparent support to families with young children. Although grandchildren tend to remain emotionally close to grandparents throughout childhood, grandparents spend the most time with grandchildren prior to elementary school (Dunifon et al., 2018), for example helping with childcare (Silverstein & Marenco, 2001). The current study also examined grandparent support broadly. American families may have multiple important grandparent relations (e.g., grandparents, great-grandparents, step-grandparents). We assert that grandparent support might have an additive effect. For example, parents may perceive financial support as a greater help when both maternal and paternal grandparents provide financial assistance rather than only one; however, much of the prior work on non-custodial grandparents has focused on only one grandparent relationship (e.g., maternal grandmothers; Barnett et al., 2010) or limited the number of grandparents (Gray & Brogdon, 2017). We thus surveyed parents about all grandparent relationships and summed scores across all relationships reported.

To better understand the financial and instrumental supports that grandparents provide that alleviate burden, we also surveyed parents about the objective ways in which grandparents provide support; for example, purchasing goods for grandchildren (e.g., books, clothing), childcare, direct financial assistance (e.g., helping with bills), and several other items. Given American parents’ desire for children to be engaged in extracurricular activities combined with the financial constraints of doing so, we also surveyed parents about grandparents’ support of these types of activities (e.g., sports, memberships, etc.). Although these findings are largely descriptive, this is important because, as Sadruddin et al. (2019) noted in their meta-analysis of grandparent support and child outcomes, little is known about what grandparents actually do. They argue that more work is needed to operationalize grandparent support. Our novel measure addressed this gap. We also surveyed a subset of grandparents directly, obtaining important information about where parents’ and grandparents’ perceptions of support are consistent.

Our central analysis focused on the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development, predicting that this relation is moderated by grandparent support. Given the relations between SES and young children’s expressive language, receptive language, literacy, and math described above, parents reported on their child’s development in all four domains. We included covariates to ensure that the relation between SES and children’s cognition was not confounded by other variables that are related to SES and children’s cognitive development, including family demographics (child and parent age, family size) and parenting stress. For example, older parents will tend to have a higher SES (Van Holland De Graaf et al., 2018) and also provide a more cognitively stimulating learning environment to children (Lurie et al., 2021). Parental stress is also an important covariate as Violato et al. (2011) found that it mediated the relation between SES and children’s cognitive outcomes.

Finally, we examined how the four areas of grandparent support were related to the physical and emotional closeness to the grandchild and the frequency of contact. We aimed to address limitations of prior studies of grandparent support that are often biased because of small sample sizes and a focus on high-risk populations only (Sadruddin et al., 2019) by surveying a large sample of typical parent-headed middle-class American families. Prior studies of grandparent support have often not provided the reliability of parents’ perceived grandparent support (e.g., Parkes et al., 2015; Trute, 2003). This study addressed this gap by surveying a subset of parents six weeks later to determine the reliability of support measures over time.

Summary of Study Aims

  1. Describe grandparent relationships to the child in terms of: grandparent type (e.g., maternal parents) and grandparent support (financial, instrumental, emotional, informational).

  2. Examine the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development.

    Hypothesis 1: SES will be positively related to children’s cognitive development.

  3. Examine perceived grandparent support as a moderator of the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development.

    Hypothesis 2: Grandparent support will moderate the SES-cognitive development relationship; specifically, this relationship will be weaker when grandparents provide greater support to parents.

  4. Examine the relations among the four areas of perceived grandparent support and contextual variables (i.e., physical distance, emotional closeness to child, contact frequency).

    Hypothesis 3: Contextual variables will be positively related to perceived grandparent support variables though physical distance may be a better predictor of instrumental support.

Method

Sample

Below, we report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions, and all measures in the study. This study was not pre-registered. Participants included 437 American parents between 20 and 51 years old (M = 34.76; SD = 4.55) and their 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers (M = 4.18; SD = 0.74); 52% of children were female. Participants were 87.6% biological mothers, 8.7% biological fathers, and 2.5% adoptive mothers; 1.2% were stepmothers, foster mothers, or non-gestational parents. We obtained test-retest data from 183 of parents who volunteered to complete grandparent support portions of the survey six weeks later. Children were: 83.4% White, 9.3% Biracial, 3.9% Black, 2.1% Other, 1.1% Asian, and 0.2% American Indian or Alaska Native. Parents reported on children’s ethnicity separately; 6.9% were Spanish, Hispanic, or Latino. Most parents (98%) reported English as the primary language spoken with children. Family size ranged from 1–6 children (M = 2.02; SD = 0.90) and 1–6 adults (M = 2.04; SD = 0.55). Based on family income and parents’ level of education, most parents in the sample were middle-class (details are provided in the measures section). Most children (95.8%) were not currently living with a grandparent and most parents were married (86.1%) or cohabitating with a co-parent (5.9%). Given the scarcity of empirical data on the role of grandparent support as a moderator of SES and child outcomes, we planned to obtain a large sample that could provide sufficient power to test moderation effects with a small effect size.

Participants also included 80 grandparents (corresponding to 66 of the parent respondents) between 46 and 78 years old (M = 64.51; SD = 6.82), including 44 maternal grandmothers, 11 maternal grand(or step-grand)fathers or stepfathers, 18 paternal grandmothers, 7 paternal grand(or step-grand)fathers. All but one reported speaking primarily English with grandchildren.

Participant Recruitment

We obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board of the Ohio State University for an online survey titled Grandparent Involvement Via Environmental Supports (GIVES; protocol number 2018B0090). Most participants (97%) were recruited through ResearchMatch.org, a national health volunteer registry that was created by several academic institutions and supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health as part of the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program. Using a recruitment script targeting parents of preschoolers, we sent messages to groups of 1500 people from the pool of 170,000+ volunteers. We began with volunteers who have registered their child as a volunteer within our age range, then moved onto the general volunteer pool. Remaining participants (3%) were recruited from Head Start (a federally funded preschool program for low-income families) or flyers on campus. Parents participated from April 2018 to May 2020 and represented 45 U.S. states.

Measures

Socioeconomic Status

Parents reported their annual family income on a scale that ranged from $0-$9,999 to $200,000 or more in $10,000 increments for a total of 21 income points. The mid-point of participants’ selection was used as their family income. Income combined with their family size (i.e., adults and children in the home) was used to calculate their income-to-needs ratio based on the U.S. Census poverty thresholds. A score of 1.0 indicates a family is living at the poverty line because their needs (based on family size) are equivalent to their income though researchers argue a score of 2.0 more accurately represents the realities of poverty in America (Boushey et al., 2001). The sample included a range of income-to-needs ratios: 14.4% of families were living in poverty (<2.0); 36.2% of families were at a 2.0 to 4.0 income-to-needs ratio; 26.8% were between 4.0 and 6.0; and 22.6% were above 6.0. To place these values in context, the average income-to-needs ratio was 4.21, corresponding to a two-parent, two-child household earning $107,208, which places the sample largely in the middle-class (Pew Research Center, 2022).

Parents (n = 430) also reported their highest level of education as well as their partner or spouse (n = 405). Choices and percentages included: 1) less than a high school degree; < 1%, 2) high school graduate/GED; 6%, 3) some college/no degree, 13%, 4) associate degree, 8%, 5) bachelor’s degree, 33%, 6) master’s degree, 25%, and 7) professional or doctoral degree, 14%.

Z-scores of parent education (averaged in two-parent families) and the income-to-needs ratio were summed to form an SES variable. The two measures of SES were strongly correlated (r = .54, p < .001) and not differentially related to the primary outcome variable—children’s cognitive development scores (r = .14, p = .008 for income and r = .16, p = .001 for education).

Parental Stress Scale

This 18-item scale (Berry & Jones, 1995) asks parents about common stressors parents face (e.g., “Having children has been a financial burden”). Responses ranged from 1) strongly disagree to 5) strongly agree; eight items are reverse scored (e.g., “I am satisfied as a parent”). Internal reliability was high in the original (α = .83) and current sample (α = .85). This scale is significantly correlated with the Perceived Stress Scale (r = .50) and with the Parenting Stress Index (r = .75; Berry & Jones, 1995).

Grandparent Relationships

Parents selected as many grandparent relations as applicable in response to the question: “Which grandparents does your preschooler have contact with (either face-to-face or through phone, Skype, e-mail, mail, etc.)? Please select all that apply.” We provided an extensive list of grandparents, including great-grandparents and in-laws, separated by household. For example, married maternal grandparents were considered one unit because some grandparent questions overlap within cohabiting partners, e.g., financial support, geographical distance from grandchild). Answer choices and frequencies are described in Table S1 of the supplemental file.

Perceived Grandparent Support

Parents were asked one question (with an example) about how they perceived each grandparent relationship in terms of: 1) providing financial support (for example, helping buy things your preschooler needs)?, 2) instrumental support, phrased as lending a hand with your preschooler (for example, babysitting)?, 3) emotional support (for example, listening when you need someone to talk to)?, and 4) informational support phrased as providing you with useful childrearing information (for example, giving advice on parenting)?. Responses ranged from 0) never helpful to 4) very helpful. These items were adapted from similar single-item measures of parents’ perceived support from grandparents in all four areas (e.g., Parkes et al., 2015; Trute, 2003; Trute et al., 2008). For each category of support, responses were summed across grandparents to create a total support score (see Kelley et al., 2013; Parkes et al., 2015 for similar approaches). The subsample of parents who completed the survey again six weeks later was largely consistent in their responses in each of the four areas of grandparent support (r = .73 to .85, p < .001).

The four categories of support were strongly correlated, (r = .58 - .87, p < .001); see Table S2 of the supplemental file for the complete correlation matrix. Thus, z-scores of each support category were summed to create a total grandparent support score for each participant (see Fingerman et al., 2015; Parkes et al., 2015 for a similar approach). Using a total support score rather than four separate moderators reduces redundancy given their high degree of overlap and our focus on a general “grandparent support” construct and reduces the Type I error rate.

Grandparent Financial and Instrumental Support

Created for this study, parents completed the Grandparent Instrumental and Financial Transfer (GIFT) survey for each grandparent relationship. This list was exhaustive of the ways in which grandparents provide tangible goods and services to parents and included 32 items based on input from several parents, grandparents, and childcare staff. Items included entertainment/educational needs of grandchildren (e.g., books, toys), direct needs of grandchildren (e.g., childcare, clothing), and help to parents to care for children (e.g., help with rent, home repairs). The full list of items, answer choices, and frequencies are provided in Table S3 of the supplemental file. Table S4 of the supplemental file shows that most items were significantly correlated between parent and grandparent responses (24 of 32) though some were weak in magnitude perhaps reflecting that grandparents do not always know where parents allocate direct transfers of money (e.g., car payment); Table S4 also shows that parents were largely consistent in their responses across time (28 of the 32 items were strongly correlated, r = .52 to .85, p < .001). For each grandparent relationship, parents were asked open-ended questions about how much money grandparents contributed to the child’s personal savings and college savings in the past year. Parents were also asked if each grandparent relationship helped pay for extracurricular activities, including: sporting or athletic activities, musical or artistic activities, or yearly memberships (e.g., the zoo) in the past year.

Grandparent Contextual Variables

For each grandparent relationship reported, parents answered questions about the grandparents’ physical distance (How close does your preschooler live to [grandparent relationship])? The choices were: 4) in the same city or town, 3) not in the same city or town, but in the same state in the U.S., 2) in a different state in the U.S., or 1) in a different country. Test-retest reliability for parents (six weeks later) and consistency between parents and grandparents was very strong, r = .93 and .83 (p < .001) respectively. Parents answered questions about the grandparents’ emotional closeness (How close would you see [grandparent relationship] in terms of their emotional relationship with your preschooler)? The choices were: 5) close/intense to 1) distant/cold. Test-retest reliability for parents and consistency between parents and grandparents was fair to moderate, r = .77 (p < .001) and .30 (p < .01) respectively. Parents answered questions about the grandparents’ contact frequency (How often does [grandparent relationship] see your preschooler)? The choices were: 5) every day or almost every day, 4) about once per week, 3) about once per month, 2) a few times per year, or 1) never. Test-retest reliability for parents and consistency between parents and grandparents was moderate to strong, r = .83 and .61 (p < .001) respectively.

Cognitive Development

Children’s cognitive development was measured with the Child Development Inventory (CDI; Ireton, 1992). Parents were presented only with cognitive development items for children 3 years to 6 years; 3 months. The Expressive Language scale included 17 items (e.g., “Talks in long, complex sentences, ten words or longer”). Language Comprehension included 22 items (e.g., “Talks about the future, about what is “going to” happen”). Letters included 15 items (e.g., “Recognizes and names all the letters in the alphabet”). Finally, Numbers included 13 items (e.g., “Prints the numbers 1 through 9”). Parents responded yes (1) or no (0) to each item such that total scores represented the number of skills. One item from the Letters scale was mistakenly omitted from the surveys of 125 participants. However, for the remaining sample who completed the full scale the correlation between total scores with and without the missing item was r = .996, p <.0001; thus, the 13-item scale was used for all participants. Because the four scales were strongly correlated (r = .56 - .87, p < .001), z-scores from each scale were summed to create a total Cognitive Development score for analyses.

CDI subscales have strong internal consistency (Ireton, 1992); Chronbach’s alpha ranged from .83 to .91 in the current sample. The CDI was developed to measure the developmental progress of children from infancy to the beginning of formal schooling and thus the scales should be significantly correlated with age. Correlations between age and CDI subscales were statistically significant in the validation sample (r = .70 to .84) and the current sample (r = .36 to .63, p < .001). The difference in these correlations likely reflects a broader age range in the validation sample (ages 1–6) compared to the current sample (ages 3–5). The CDI is also significantly correlated with objective measures of academic achievement (e.g., Ireton, 1995).

Procedure

Parents participated online via the Qualtrics platform. The consent process included questions that required that the participant was at least 18 years of age, was the parent of a 3- to 5-year-old preschooler, and had not taken the survey before. There were numerous attention checks throughout the survey. Participants were excluded from the study if they: failed more than one attention check (n = 16); provided a response inconsistent with study criteria (e.g., child date of birth was inconsistent with the age criterion; n = 3); or consented but answered no survey questions (n = 12). At the conclusion of the survey, parents were asked to consent to an optional follow-up survey six weeks later and to provide the e-mail addresses of grandparent relationships; these grandparents were invited to complete the grandparent surveys and provided with the first name or nickname of the grandchild given by parents. Parents were entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card for every 25 participants. Grandparents, who completed a shorter survey, were entered into a drawing for a $15 gift card for every 10 participants.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 examined the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development and grandparent support as a moderator of that relationship. These regression analyses were conducted within the multilevel modeling framework, which uses all available data for the parameter estimate. For hypothesis 3 (contextual variables would be related to grandparent support), random effect regression analyses were conducted for each of the four areas of grandparent support with multiple grandparents nested within the family. A family ID variable was created to identify grandparents of the same child. The regression analyses were conducted while simultaneously estimating and adjusting for the amount of intraclass correlation presented within clusters to account for the nonindependence of data within families. Missing data were examined prior to data analyses. Missing data ranged from 0.2% to 12.8% across study variables. Little’s MCAR test (χ2 = 35.678, df = 45, p > .10) suggested that data were likely missing completely at random. To maximize the power of the analysis, we chose to use multiple imputation to handle missing data and generated 50 samples (Graham et al., 2007) for the analysis. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test hypotheses 2 and 3 on the imputed data sets. Child age, parent age, number of children living in the home, number of adults living in the home, and parental stress were used as covariates. Data and study materials are available from the first author upon reasonable request, including the other variables not relevant to the current study (who children spend time with each week, parents’ occupational status, and SES variables for the small subset of grandparents who responded to surveys).

Results

Our first study aim was to describe grandparents’ relationships to the child, parents’ perceived grandparent support, and grandparents’ tangible support. The number of grandparent relationships per child in the study ranged from 0–8 (M = 2.49; SD = 1.18). Three participants reported having no grandparent involvement. The 424 parents reporting on grandparent relationships reported 1,047 grandparent relationships. The most common grandparent relationships were mother’s mother and father (n = 234) and father’s mother and father (n = 203). Our list appeared extensive as only four participants indicated “other” (e.g., an aunt who is like a grandmother) in responding to the question about grandparent relationships.

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for study variables. Table S3 of the supplemental file details the 32 items of the GIFT surveys, ordered from most frequent grandparent support to least frequent. There were six categories for which over 50% of parents reported grandparent support in the past year: toys and games, meals, books, clothing/shoes, arts and crafts, and childcare. Because the GIFT survey was created to identify the financial and instrumental supports provided by grandparents, we also explored relations between the 32 items and the global financial and instrumental support ratings. Table S5 of the supplemental file demonstrates that all but one correlation (helped with car payment) was statistically significant. Items most strongly related to global perceived financial support were taking the family out for a fun activity (r = .44) and helping with groceries (r = .43); items most strongly related to global perceived instrumental support were providing childcare (r = .60) and cooking for or paying for a meal out for the grandchild (r = .58), all ps < .001.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for SES, Grandparent Support, and Children’s Cognitive Development

Variable N Mean SD Range
Family Income 428 11.07 5.23 1–21
Income-to-needs Ratio 425 4.21 2.15 0.20–9.90
Average Parent Education 430 4.86 1.27 1–7
Parental Stress 381 39.44 8.74 18–68
Grandparent Financial Support 392 3.99 3.22 0–19
Grandparent Instrumental Support 392 5.22 2.79 0–15
Grandparent Emotional Support 392 5.41 3.15 0–18
Grandparent Informational Support 392 4.42 2.95 0–16
CDI Expressive Language (out of 17) 394 13.75 3.89 0–17
CDI Language Comprehension (out of 22) 392 17.82 4.86 0–22
CDI Letters (out of 14) 387 6.60 4.09 0–14
CDI Numbers (out of 13) 389 7.92 2.79 0–13
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Note. CDI = Child Development Inventory.

Parents (n = 750 grandparent relationships) reported that 21% of grandparents supported at least one extracurricular activity. Common responses were help with sporting fees or equipment (e.g., soccer, ballet, and swim lessons), music lessons, and zoo or science center memberships. Parents reported that 43% of grandparents contributed to children’s personal or college savings in the past year. Including those who responded $0, personal savings averaged $126.45 and college savings averaged $372.12. When including only those grandparents who provided money transfers, personal savings averaged $409.03 and college savings averaged $965.46.

The second and third study aims were to examine the relations between SES and children’s cognitive development. Table 2 provides the bivariate correlations among all study variables. There were no significant child gender differences in grandparent support (separate skills or combined) or children’s cognitive development (separate skills or combined), all ps > .10; thus, gender was not controlled in subsequent analyses. In support of Hypothesis 1, SES was significantly but modestly related to children’s cognitive development, r = .17, p < .001. There were also significant relations among covariates (child age, parent age, family size) and key study variables (SES, grandparent support, cognitive development).

Table 2.

Bivariate Correlations among Study Variables

Variable Child age Parent age # of Children # of Adults Parental Stress SES Grandparent Support
Child age --
Parent age .17*** --
Number of children .09 .07 --
Number of adults -.03 -.07 .06 --
Parental stress -.01 .02 .06 .10 --
SES .00 .34*** -.14** -.06 .00 --
Grandparent Support .04 -.17*** -.04 .10* -.08 -.03 --
Cognitive Development .57*** .16** -.10 -.05 -.10 .17*** .07
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Note. SES = socioeconomic status;

*

p < .05.

**

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

Next, we tested a hierarchical regression analysis on children’s cognitive development using the 50 imputed data sets (Table 3). Independent variables were entered in the analysis in three steps, 1) covariates (child age, parent age, number of children and number of adults in home, and parent stress), 2) SES and grandparent support (both were centered), and 3) interaction between SES and grandparent support. In step 1, covariates accounted for significant variation in child cognitive development (ΔR2 = .346, p < .001). Children’s cognitive development was positively associated with child and parent age and negatively associated with the number of children in the home. Hypothesis 1, the association between SES and child cognitive development, was tested in Step 2 of the analysis while controlling for grandparent support and the covariates. Results indicated that family SES was positively associated with child cognitive development (B = 0.651, SE = .185, p < .001). Grandparent support was unrelated to children’s cognitive development. The two variables entered in this step resulted in a significant R2 change (ΔR2 = .024, p = .001).

Table 3.

Hierarchical Regression Analysis Predicting Preschoolers’ Cognitive Development

B SE t ΔR2 F
Step 1 .346 37.942***
Child age 2.660 .206 12.898***
Parent age 0.054 .034 1.578
Number of children -0.498 .170 −2.932**
Number of adults -0.047 .276 −0.172
Parent stress -0.032 .017 −1.893
Step 2 .024 6.852***
Child age 2.707 .204 13.276***
Parent age 0.017 .036 0.483
Number of children −0.367 .171 −2.139*
Number of adults −0.050 .273 −0.183
Parent stress −0.030 .017 −1.814
SES 0.651 .185 3.523***
Grandparent support 0.014 .014 0.980
Step 3 .009 4.915*
Child age 2.655 .204 13.009***
Parent age 0.016 .036 0.452
Number of children −0.364 .170 −2.137*
Number of adults −0.126 .274 −0.460
Parent stress −0.030 .017 −1.797
SES 0.605 .187 3.275***
Grandparent support 0.009 .014 0.638
SES X Grandparent support −0.034 .015 −2.217*
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Note.

*

p < .05.

**

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

In Step 3 of the analysis, the interaction between SES and grandparent support was entered to test whether grandparent support moderated the relation between family SES and child cognitive development (Hypothesis 2). As shown in Table 3, there was a negative association between the interaction term and cognitive development (B = −0.034, SE = .015, p = .027), which resulted in a significant increase in model R2 (ΔR2 = .009, p = .027). A significant positive association between SES and cognitive development remained (B = 0.594, SE = .180, p < .001). To further explore this interaction effect, the association between SES and cognitive development was tested at high (+1 SD), average, and low (−1 SD) levels of grandparent support (see Figure 1). SES was significantly associated with cognitive development in families with low (B = 0.973, SE = .218, p < .001) and average (B = 0.605, SE = .187, p < .001) grandparent support but not when grandparent support was high (B = 0.036, SE = .015, p = .405). Separate regression analyses for each type of grandparent support were also explored (see Tables S6 to S9 in the supplemental file); all but informational support was a significant moderator of SES and children’s cognitive development.

Figure 1. Moderating Effect of Grandparent Support on the Relation Between Family SES and Child Cognitive Development.

Figure 1

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Note. SES and cognitive development were positively associated when grandparent support was at low to average leveld but was unrelated when grandparent support was high.

Although we created a composite SES variable for reasons described above, we acknowledge that parent education is more stable than income and the meaning of family-to-needs ratios could differ across the wide range of geographic locations included. Thus, we repeated the regression analyses with parent education (centered) as the indicator of SES. Patterns of statistical significance were highly similar and the key predictor of interest (i.e., the interaction between SES and grandparent support) remained significant (Supplemental Table S10).

The fourth study aim was to examine the relations among the four areas of perceived grandparent support and contextual variables, including physical distance from the child, emotional closeness to child, and contact frequency. Though we examined grandparent support globally in the above analyses, our goal was different here. Rather than grandparent support as a predictor (moderator), the fourth aim considers grandparent support as an outcome, one for which we might expect different relations with our predictors. For example, physical distance may be more strongly related to instrumental support than financial support. Thus, four random effect regression analyses were conducted (Table 4). Grandparents’ emotional closeness to the child and frequency of contact were both positively associated with their level of support in all areas—financial, instrumental, emotional, and informational. Interestingly, grandparent’s physical closeness was unrelated to support in most areas, except for emotional support, which was positively associated with physical closeness.

Table 4.

Contextual Variables Contributing to Grandparent Support

Financial Support
 Instrumental Support
B SE t p B SE t p
Physical distance -.056 .058 -0.975 .330 .083 .052 1.615 .107
Emotional closeness .530 .052 10.229 < .001 .892 .046 19.185 < .001
Contact frequency .191 .051 3.749 < .001 .401 .046 8.814 < .001
Emotional Support
 Informational Support
B SE t p B SE t p
Physical distance -.110 .054 -2.028 .043 -.097 .053 -1.850 .065
Emotional closeness .766 .049 15.491 < .001 .688 .047 14.517 < .001
Contact frequency .234 .048 4.861 < .001 .142 .046 3.068 .002
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Discussion

This study aligns with a strengths-based approach (McCashen, 2017) to child and community development that focuses on families’ strengths, assets, and resources already available to them. Grandparents are a primary asset even in parent-headed households as they more often provide support to parents than other family members or friends (Van Heerden & Wild, 2019). However, surprisingly little research includes grandparents as a potential strength. As Sadruddin et al. (2019) point out, grandparents “are sidelined in caregiving research and policy decisions” (p. 1). In support of our first hypothesis, SES was positively correlated with children’s cognitive development, but when grandparent support was perceived as strong by parents, the relation between SES and children’s cognition was weaker in support of our second hypothesis. Specifically, SES was positively associated with cognitive development when grandparent support was at a low to average level; however, SES was unrelated to cognitive development when grandparent support was high. This suggests that grandparents have a buffering effect on the negative influence of lower parental education and income on children’s cognitive development, which is a strength of these families. Nearly 96% of grandparents did not reside with grandchildren in this sample, suggesting that grandparents can have this buffering effect even if they do not live with grandchildren or serve as primary guardian.

Although their focus was not on the SES-child cognition relation, our findings parallel those of Barnett et al. (2010), who found that maternal grandmother involvement buffered the relation between mother harsh parenting and children’s externalizing behaviors. They posited that grandmothers stand in for mothers to model positive behaviors. Similarly, we argued that grandparent support may buffer the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development because grandparent support stands in for what may be missing for parents with fewer resources. We conceptualized grandparent support in terms of financial and instrumental support (e.g., purchase of goods, childcare) and social support (i.e., emotional support, childrearing advice). Although not directly measured in the current study, we may speculate about why grandparent support would weaken the relation between SES and children’s cognitive outcomes. According to parental investment theory (Becker & Tomes, 1986), income is associated with child development because it provides parents with the resources to invest in children’s development. When grandparents provide these resources, they may indirectly benefit children because they are freeing up resources for parents to provide. For example, grandparents providing childcare may mean that parents have more income to divert to other items and activities for children. In terms of social support, when grandparents provide emotional support, parents may feel more supported and less stressed. This is relevant to children’s cognitive development because when parents experience parental burnout, they are more likely to demonstrate parental neglect, including educational neglect (Mikolajczak et al., 2019).

To contextualize these findings, we gathered descriptive data regarding the ways in which grandparents support families with young children. Prior research has sometimes had a limited conceptualization of grandparent financial support by examining only large transfers of cash (e.g., $500 or more), concluding that most grandparents do not financially support grandchildren (McGarry, 2016; Silverstein & Marenco, 2001). However, most parents reported financial and instrumental support from grandparents in some form. We found that 43% of grandparents contributed direct cash transfers to personal or college savings for children. We also found on the GIFT survey that over 50% of parents reported that grandparents provided: toys and games, meals, books, clothing/shoes, arts and crafts, and childcare in the past year. The monetary value of providing childcare in particular is large; Dukhovnov and Zagheni (2015) estimated the value of intergenerational care transfers was $691 billion, or 4.3% of the U.S. GDP, in 2012. Additionally, about one fifth of grandparents supported grandchildren’s extracurricular activities (e.g., zoo memberships, dance classes).

This descriptive information fills an important gap in better understanding what grandparents actually do to support their families (Sadruddin et al., 2019). Much of the prior work from which we drew our survey questions about global perceived support have not specified what grandparents do to support families (e.g., Fingerman et al., 2015; Parkes et al., 2015; Trute et al., 2008). Although not transfers of cash, the items on the GIFT survey may reduce the financial burden to parents; indeed, many were significantly related to parents’ perceived financial and instrumental support from grandparents (e.g., child clothing; childcare; toys, books, and games; groceries and cooking meals).

In support of our third hypothesis, grandparent’s emotional closeness to the child and frequency of contact were both positively associated with all levels of grandparent support—financial, emotional, instrumental, and informational support. Because this study was cross-sectional, we do not know the direction of these relations, though they are likely bidirectional. When parents are emotionally close to children and interact frequently, this may bring them closer together, resulting in a greater investment in the support of the family. Perhaps when grandparents feel closer to grandchildren, they are motivated to contribute to their success by supporting children’s parents (e.g., helping with childcare).

Contrary to our third hypothesis, physical distance to their grandchild was unrelated to grandparents’ instrumental, financial, and informational support. This was somewhat surprising for instrumental support (e.g., childcare) given that these are tasks that presumably are done in person. Prior research shows that geographic distance is related to instrumental support; grandparents who live closer tend to provide more childcare (Silverstein & Marenco, 2001). It is possible that grandparents who live further away are perceived as helpful (e.g., childcare when they visit) even if the amount of time is minimal. This finding is less surprising for financial and informational support. Advancements in technology have dramatically changed the nature of relationships with extended family, allowing quick exchange of cash, goods, and information; brief but frequent check-ins (e.g., via text or video chat) have replaced the less frequent exchanges parents may have had with their own parents in the past. As Fingerman et al. (2013) pointed out, it is no longer necessary to live close to grown children to have a close relationship. However, in support of our third hypothesis, we found that grandparents tended to be more emotionally involved with grandchildren when they lived closer, consistent with Mueller and Elder (2003). Taken together, these results speak positively to the impact of grandparent involvement. Grandparents tend to be more supportive of parents when they are emotionally close to the child and have frequent contact. Although grandparents who live closer tend to have more emotionally close relationships with their grandchildren, grandparents need not live close to grandchildren to play a supportive role in families as there was no relation between geographical proximity and instrumental, financial, and informational support.

Limitations and Future Directions

The conclusions of the current work may be limited to cultures similar to the U.S. Grandparent support differs cross-culturally, for example the tendency for children to live in multi-generational households. Researchers also find that the relation between SES and children’s cognitive development may depend on the country, presumably because of different cultural or economic contexts (Liu et al., 2020). Similarly, this sample is limited in terms of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic diversity due to the sampling method (see https://www.researchmatch.org/volunteers/ for the race and ethnicity of volunteers). Although this is a limitation of the current work, it is important to note that we would expect similar results in a more diverse sample. That is, grandparents are expected to play a buffering role between parents’ SES and children’s cognitive development across SES, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. It is noteworthy that even in this largely middle-class sample that grandparents play this buffering role. Future work should determine whether our pattern of relations is consistent across cultures, SES, and race and ethnicity. Future work should also consider accounting for grandparents’ SES. We did not question parents about grandparent SES given that there would likely be missing information (e.g., one’s in-laws’ yearly income); however, prior work shows that higher-SES grandparents provide more financial help to parents, though instrumental, emotional, and information support do not differ (Fingerman et al., 2015).

Another limitation of the current work is that we did not directly assess children’s cognitive abilities. We weighed the ability to access families online from across the U.S. with the limitation of parent-assessed cognitive abilities. However, the CDI had high internal consistency and was significantly correlated with child age and SES as expected and is related to objective measures of academic achievement (e.g., Ireton, 1995). This study was also limited by its cross-sectional design. Future work should examine how grandparent support unfolds over time to predict changes in children’s cognitive development.

We also did not gather feedback from both parents in dual-parent families and the majority of respondents were mothers. Nor did we consider the grandparents’ perspective on the support they provide their families. Although grandparent support may be a strength for parents with young children, some aspects of grandparent support can be a burden for the grandparents. For example, Craig and Jenkins (2016) found that grandmothers who provided regular childcare tended to have less time for personal care and leisure activities. Future work should consider ways of directly assessing children’s cognitive abilities while also including both parent perspectives as well as grandparent perspectives on support.

Another limitation of our conceptualization of grandparent support was that it did not allow us to explore differences in a small amount of support from several grandparents with a large level of support from a few though prior investigations have also collapsed across grandparent support in this way (Kelley et al., 2013; Parkes et al., 2015). It is not clear from the available evidence whether we would expect the moderating effect to differ depending on how many grandparents were providing that support. It is possible that the moderating effect depends on the support type. For example, perhaps it is inconsequential whether a high level of financial or instrumental support comes from one highly involved grandparent or several providing smaller doses of care. However, it may be more buffering to have one strong source of emotional support compared to several weaker relationships. Finally, we considered households of grandparent support (e.g., mothers’ mother and father) rather than individual relationships. Although financial support is shared in such households, other types of support could differ (e.g., emotional support). However, we also weighed the benefit of gathering this level of detail with the potential downside of very long surveys on completion rates (parents reported on up to eight grandparent relationships). Unnecessarily long surveys could potentially bias the results towards those with fewer grandparent relationships (and thus shorter surveys) being more likely to complete the study.

Finally, future work could explore the GIFT survey by consolidating the information from this preliminary examination—consistency between grandparent and parent support, test/retest reliability, frequencies, and correlations with global measures of financial and instrumental support—to further refine the measurement of what grandparents do for families. The information gathered here from a sample of over 1,000 grandparent relationships provides evidence that some types of support may be more useful to include in a scale (e.g., help with grandchild’s laundry) than others (e.g., help with grandchild’s pets) based on the frequencies of responses and correlations presented. These support measures could provide further nuance to how grandparents support families; for example, contributing directly to grandchildren (e.g., clothing) may be more beneficial than financial help to parents (e.g., help with rent or car payment; see Table S5).

Conclusion

Grandparents are an overlooked source of support to parents in Western, parent-headed families. Though grandparents may be secondary to parents in these families, our results suggest that they are quite involved in children’s lives. While playing a supportive role to parents, they are buffering the negative relation between fewer family resources and young children’s cognitive development. Rather than examining how grandparent support is directly related to parents’ wellbeing as prior work has done (e.g., Trute, 2003), this study offers new insights into how grandparent support can play a buffering role in early childhood.

These findings suggest that in the future policy makers and social support services might consider grandparents as part of the resources available to parent-headed families with young children. Yet, grandparents are largely ignored in child welfare policies (Sadruddin et al., 2019). Those invested in supporting families could consider ways of strengthening grandparent involvement to facilitate their connection with their adult child and grandchildren. For example, though government subsidies are available for grandparent guardians, support services could be expanded to provide non-guardian grandparents with childcare, housing, or transportation assistance. This support could help grandparents support families without financially burdening grandparents and could simultaneously benefit young children’s cognitive development.

Supplementary Material

supplemental file

Funding statement:

This publication was supported, in part, by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Grant Number UL1TR002733. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Prior dissemination. This work (Tompkins & Feng, 2023) was presented as a poster at the 2023 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Salt Lake City, UT. The title of the presentation was: Grandparent Support Moderates the Relationship between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Cognitive Development.

Footnotes

Author Note

Virginia Tompkins, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University at Lima; Xin Feng, Department of Human Sciences, The Ohio State University.

Conflict of interest disclosure: We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Data availability statement:

Data and study materials are available from the first author upon reasonable request. This study was not preregistered.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

supplemental file
NIHMS2056827-supplement-supplemental_file.docx (72.8KB, docx)

Data Availability Statement

Data and study materials are available from the first author upon reasonable request. This study was not preregistered.

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