Outdated assumptions about maternal grandmothers? Gender and lineage in grandparent-grandchild relationships
Outdated assumptions about maternal grandmothers? Gender and lineage in grandparent-grandchild relationships
The impact of lineage and gender on the quality of grandparent–grandchild relationships has become more complicated in recent decades. ‘In countries with high rates of couple dissolution and re-partnering, the number of a child’s potential grandparents increases as the parents of parents’ new partners or the new partners of grandparents become part of the family. The broadening of ‘family’ potentially puts new types of grandparents on an equal footing with biological grandparents. Loosening conventions around gender and more ‘maternal fathers’ may lead to ‘new grandfathers’ who are as hands-on as grandmothers. This paper re-examines the issues with quantitative and qualitative UK data. The evidence shows the persistence of a hierarchy of involvement, with maternal grandmothers at the top and paternal grandfathers the bottom but also counter-examples pointing to the possibilities of and limits on wider social change, as three generations negotiate relationships in the shifting socio-economic conditions of their national and local context.
261-274
Jamieson, Lynn
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Ribe, Eloi
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Warner, Pamela
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Jamieson, Lynn
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Ribe, Eloi
d31b8276-457e-4e4b-8359-f454e5a4777c
Warner, Pamela
4765f826-6e09-4838-bb0c-f1f2a9a33017
Jamieson, Lynn, Ribe, Eloi and Warner, Pamela
(2018)
Outdated assumptions about maternal grandmothers? Gender and lineage in grandparent-grandchild relationships.
Contemporary Social Science, 13 (2), .
(doi:10.1080/21582041.2018.1433869).
Abstract
The impact of lineage and gender on the quality of grandparent–grandchild relationships has become more complicated in recent decades. ‘In countries with high rates of couple dissolution and re-partnering, the number of a child’s potential grandparents increases as the parents of parents’ new partners or the new partners of grandparents become part of the family. The broadening of ‘family’ potentially puts new types of grandparents on an equal footing with biological grandparents. Loosening conventions around gender and more ‘maternal fathers’ may lead to ‘new grandfathers’ who are as hands-on as grandmothers. This paper re-examines the issues with quantitative and qualitative UK data. The evidence shows the persistence of a hierarchy of involvement, with maternal grandmothers at the top and paternal grandfathers the bottom but also counter-examples pointing to the possibilities of and limits on wider social change, as three generations negotiate relationships in the shifting socio-economic conditions of their national and local context.
Text
Outdated assumptions about maternal grandmothers Gender and lineage in grandparent grandchild relationships
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Accepted/In Press date: 23 January 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 15 February 2018
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 506344
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/506344
ISSN: 2158-2041
PURE UUID: b8aed868-17eb-4180-b266-b193119a3a71
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Date deposited: 04 Nov 2025 18:13
Last modified: 05 Nov 2025 03:07
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Author:
Lynn Jamieson
Author:
Eloi Ribe
Author:
Pamela Warner
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