What about the grandparents? Children's postdivorce residence arrangements and contact with grandparents

Abstract

Despite the importance of grandparents in their grandchildren's lives, little is known about grandparent-grandchild contact after parental divorce. In this study, the authors investigated differences in grandparent-grandchild contact across 3 postdivorce residence arrangements (mother residence, father residence, and shared residence) using recent survey data from the Netherlands (N = 3,842). The results indicated that contact with maternal grandparents after divorce was highest in mother-residence arrangements, followed by shared residence and then father residence. Contact with paternal grandparents was highest for children in father-residence and shared-residence arrangements, followed by mother residence. Parental conflict had little influence on children's contact with maternal grandparents, but it decreased contact with paternal grandparents. Moreover, the results partly support the assumption that conflict moderates the relationship between residence arrangements and grandparental contact, with differences between residence arrangements being more pronounced in the case of high-conflict divorced families than in low-conflict ones.