Frequency of Grandparent Contact With Grandchild Sets: Six Factors That Make a Difference

Using data from the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors examine the determinants of frequent and infrequent visiting between grandparents and their grandchild sets. A grandchild set consists of all the children of a particular child of the grandparent, provided that the grandchildren reside in their parent's household. The 6 significant predictors of frequent or infrequent contact are geographic distance, quality of relationship between grandparent and parent of the grandchild set, number of grandchild sets, gender of grandparent, lineage of the grandchild set, and marital status of the grandparent.