(upbeat music) (graphic pops) - Hello and welcome to "The Journal," I'm Steve Kendall.

We all have ideas about who and what grandparents are and what marriage and divorce about, but we're gonna go through it by the numbers and kind of get a snapshot of grandparenting in the U.S. and marriage and divorce in the U.S. We're joined by Dr. Wendy Manning and Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne from the BGSU National Center for Family and Marriage Research.

Welcome both of you to "The Journal."

Krista, let's talk about grandparenting and kinda give us a snapshot of what grandparenting is in the U.S., then we can kind of drill down into some more detail because you guys gotta have a lot of research about who grandparents are, who they're living with, who they're not living with, how old they are, all those demographics.

So kinda give us a snapshot of what grandparenting looks like in the U.S. right now, in the year 2024.

- Well, right now about half of people age 50 and older in the United States are grandparents, and that's a decrease.

Back in 2008, about 60% of people age 50 and older were grandparents, so that's a 10% decline over the past few years, and as of the most recent data we have, the average age of grandparents in the United States is 68 years old.

- Now, what do we attribute the difference, is this just a demographic aging thing, or why are we have fewer people in the grandparenting age bracket than we did years ago?

- Well, that's a great question.

So there's some really innovative work that's come out from Rachel Margolis.

So she's worked with us before in the past, and she's actually tackled this question, and the biggest contributor to the declining share of grandparent has to do with individuals not having children themselves.

- [Steve] Ah.

- So that's the thing about being a grandparent, right?

You have to have a child first, right, and then that child has to have the child.

And then also you have to be able to live long enough to see, you know, that possible child be born and grand, you know?

So the biggest contributor has been this decrease in ever having children.

- [Steve] Ah.

- But also, with those fertility decline, we've also seen a decrease in the share of those who have had children, their children actually having children.

- Okay, yeah, and I would be a good example of that because obviously I have an only child, we have an only child, they show no inclination right now, and I probably shouldn't say this, they're not inclined right now to have children.

So we're older than 50 and yet, and my partner also is in the same situation, her son and his partner show no inclination to have kids.

So we're older than the 50 age bracket and doesn't look like we're ever gonna be grandparents which, you know, it is what it is, right?

And so that speaks to that directly then.

- [Wendy] I think as people have fewer children, then your odds of having a grandchild are lower.

So if you have four children, then the odds that one of those kids will have children is higher.

And so the one we have smaller family sizes...see declines.

- [Steve] Yeah, and we've talked about that before that obviously over time people, even if they're having children, they're having fewer of them in each family setting.

- [Wendy] Yeah.

- [Steve] So when we look at all of that, and we've talked about, I know the last time you guys were on, we talked about kinlessness.

So what does that foretell in the future if we have fewer grandparents, fewer people having children, et cetera, et cetera, where does that leave us as people get older?

Because we talked about this before, that if there aren't children and there aren't grandchildren, what happens to the people who are of a certain age?

- Well, I think that's a big concern that we're facing as a society, is we rely on family care so much for older folks, and so what's going to happen to older folks in the future if they don't have children or grandchildren to care for them?

But we have other systems in place and we have other people who can help provide care, but it's certainly in a society where you're relying on family so heavily, it's going to become more of an issue.

- Right, and of course too, if you have fewer siblings, you don't have brothers and sisters to rely on to then also provide that support level.

One of the things too, I know you break this down, all the different demographics.

Are there any differences between when you look at ethnicity and things of that nature?

Is there any significant difference among grandparents in those categories or not?

- Oh, yes.

So generally our highest share of individuals to be a grandparent would be those who identify as African American or Hispanic.

So over half of them, 52% in 2022, were grandparents, white individuals were about half 50%, and then Asian Americans about 36%.

So there is some variation.

- Yeah, and has that changed greatly over time?

I don't know if there's tracking, if there's research that says, is that moving farther apart, staying roughly the same in terms of difference in ethnicity?

- Not tremendously, at least not in the timeframe that we've been able to look at the data.

So we use the survey of income and program participation and we go back to 2008, and those have have been pretty stable.

- Yeah.

Now, when we also look too, I guess when you look at the way grandparenting has, I'm trying to get, when you frame this question, are grandparents different today than they were because of these differences in the number of grandchildren?

Is there something different about the way they live their lives now?

I know I'm getting in there kind of blindsiding you with that, but how does that impact the grandparents themselves then?

I mean, how does that work for them if there are fewer grandchildren?

Is their lifestyle different because of that then, less grandchildren to have around to take care of, to enjoy?

- [Wendy] It could work either way.

I mean, I think is we are expecting parents to be more intensive parents, maybe we're expecting grandparents to be more intensive as well.

And it depends a lot upon how close you live to your grandchildren in terms of the roles you can play.

I think we have some new opportunities with social media where grandparents can be involved and engage with grandchildren in different ways.

But certainly we might have higher expectations, especially as families struggle to find childcare for young children, they might be relying more on grandparent care, and then we also have some grandparents who are caring for children.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

And the other thing too, and as we kind of move, you've also have some other demographic and other data too.

The difference between grandparents who you define as midlife grandparents versus older grandparents.

Have those numbers changed at all significantly?

Is there a difference between when you first maybe started doing this and now that there are younger grandparents, or are there more older grandparents than there used to be?

- Well, actually I can speak to this.

Well, how do we define this?

So our midlife grandparents both have declined over time.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- So the share who our older grandparents is larger, and back in 2014, so about eight years ago, two thirds of all grandparents we would've considered older, and now we would say 67% are.

And then midlife grandparents have declined from 33% down to 24%.

- So yeah, it's just sort of, they're both trending roughly the same way then.

- [Krista] Yes, yep, pretty parallel.

- Yeah, well, we come back, there's obviously more to delve into with grandparenting because obviously- - [Krista] Yes.

- That's a good chunk of the population.

So back in just a moment with Dr. Wendy Manning and Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne from the BGSU National Center for Family and Marriage Research, back in just a moment.

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guest are Dr. Wendy Manning and Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne from the BGSU Center for Family and Marriage Research.

Krista, we've talked about grandparents.

What about the prevalence of grandchildren living with their grandparents with or without their parents in the household?

What does that terrain look like as we sit here today?

- Well, overwhelmingly, grandparents don't live with their grandchildren.

- [Steve] Okay.

- Only about 8% do today, and what we've seen a little bit of up and down in that trajectory over time, generally it's remained pretty steady.

We had only like 6.8% in 2008, but it's just kind of, like I said, just up and down.

So it's pretty steady about below 10%.

- Hm, okay, and with both grandparents living with their children and their grandchildren, what about grandparents who are raising their grandchildren with the parents in the picture to maybe a minimal level or not at all, is that changing at all or not?

- So really we found that that hasn't changed, and we often refer to that as a skip generation household.

- [Steve] Okay.

- When the parents is not in the household, and that's about a quarter of all of those, how types of households are that skip generation.

And the prevalence of that is slightly higher when the grandchild is older.

And so when we look at the age, that increases as the child's age increases.

- Ah, interesting, interesting.

Yeah, as you guys look at this overall, I mean, you get a much broader view than we do, you're giving us these snapshots.

Is this research, how far back do we go with actually researching grandparents and grandchildren and skip generations that, I mean, how far back does your data actually go at this point?

- [Wendy] Well, we have, we know quite a bit about grandparents who are raising grandchildren if there's a grandchild in the household, but we know less about what share of the population is a grandparent.

And given the bulk of grandparents are not raising their children, it's sort of a missed opportunity.

And so we think it's really exciting, and I'm particularly interested in showcasing what share of Americans are grandparents that we're been able to do that with the survey of Income Program and Participation Data.

And I think it goes back, is it 2008, Krista, is probably some of our... - [Krista] I think that's the earliest that we've been producing these statistics.

- [Wendy] Yeah.

- [Steve] So relatively recent, I mean, we can't go back and say, "Well, in the forties it looked like this," at least not with the kind of comfort level you'd have with the data, basically.

- [Wendy] Yeah, you'd have to do some simulations and I think there are some estimates of that based on different data sources, but basically a lot of our data is based on who are you living with?

And so that creates a little bit of an issue.

But yeah, I think it's really exciting to know about this.

- And you mentioned, I guess, is it SIP, S-I-P-P?

- [Wendy] Yeah.

- Is that a, that's obviously a government database.

- [Wendy] The U.S. Census Bureau.

- Census Bureau.

Have they become more, I guess we all of course, fill out census forms, but we don't notice maybe the changes, are there more questions about those sort of things than there used to be?

If we went back to the census of 1980, would those questions look a lot different about, would there be any questions that would give us that kind of information back then?

I mean, I know we're speculating, but... - Yeah, I mean, the decennial census has changed over time, it's not fix, we ask different questions, but who's living in the household is traditionally a question we do ask, but we haven't asked in the past, "Are you a grandparent?"

I think it would be a great question to add, but there's a lot of competition for questions on these surveys, it's sort of gold, you can't add questions.

But hopefully, I think it's an important question moving forward, because being a grandparent could be an important source of social support, a way of receiving support as well as providing support.

- Right.

Yeah, And I guess that's the thing too, because I know we talked the last time, it was about how do you provide support for people as they get into that demographic, but they also have a lot to give back because as you mentioned earlier, you know, providing childcare, providing whatever.

And grandparents have always been, you know, like, well, you know, babysitters but now the scope is bigger than that, the responsibility sounds bigger than that and is, so yeah, there's both, there's things that they offer and things that they need for support as well.

When you look at the demographics of who is living in those households, I think you maybe mentioned this, explain again as you said something to the effect of the older the children, the more likely they are to be in a, am I right about saying it was a skip generation household or did I misinterpret that or mishear it?

- Yeah, no, so if you look at children who are living with their grandparents, and you're looking at children who are under the age of six, about 83% who are living with a grandparent have their own parent in the household.

- [Steve] Oh, okay, alright.

- You know, but then when you move up to children who are between the ages of seven and twelve, only, well, I shouldn't say only, but it decreases to 72%, and then children who are 13 to 17, it decreases even further to 62%.

So those oldest minor children have the largest share living in a skip generation household with their grandparent at 38% of all living with a grandparent.

- And do we have any information on to why that is?

I mean, is that linked to divorce and marriage in some way or other, there's just, yeah, I'm just curious because obviously that is a significant difference from young childhood- - [Krista] Yes.

- To teenage years, basically.

- There could be a lot of varied reasons that are offsetting one another so we don't really know for sure, they don't ask why are they here?

It could be a short term arrangement or it could be a long term arrangement.

So it could be that they're living there, their grandparent is essentially raising them, becoming a parent.

Or it could be the alternative where they're just providing a short term respite while something is going on with the parents.

Also, when the parents are, maybe, especially we talked about during the pandemic, maybe some families were moving in with their grandparents and their children were living with their, everybody, we had a lot of three generation households set another way.

And so that could be part of what's happening.

But these aren't always long-term permanent rearrangements.

- Yeah, now, anything else before we leave this 'cause we're gonna shift over into marriage and divorce in just a sec.

Is there any final thoughts on grandparenting?

Like what's the next thing you're gonna go research in this?

Because there's always another question, obviously.

- [Wendy] Yeah, I think we're interested in knowing what are some of the implications of having a grandparent involved in your life and looking at both directions from the younger folks looking up to their parents and how middle aged people are reliant on their parents for support and also the other direction.

And of course it gets complicated.

- There's a lot to take in there, a lot to sift through and everything.

Good, yeah, we'll be back in just a moment.

We're gonna talk about, 'cause you just have some recent research and data on marriage and divorce in the U.S. which, you know, this is part of this package too as well.

Back in just a moment here on "The Journal" with Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne and Dr. Wendy Manning from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.

Back in just a second.

You're with us here on "The Journal" and we're talking with two representatives, two members, key members of the BGSU National Center for Family and Marriage Research, Dr. Wendy Manning, Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne.

Dr. Manning, we've talked about specific things you guys are talking here today, but the Center does a lot of things.

I mean, we were touching on grandparents and marriage and divorce, but kind of tell us the scope of what you folks do there at the Center.

- Oh, thanks for the opportunity.

Yeah, we've been around since 2008, so we're about to celebrate our 17th anniversary next year and what we do is we're really interested in providing, accurate, reliable, and timely data about marriage and family trends.

And so one of our great showcases for this are the family profiles that we're talking about today, and we really would be excited for people to come visit our webpage and look for more of these.

And so they sort of appear, they're kind of deceptively simple, but a lot of work goes on behind them.

And so that's what's exciting for us is we get to analyze the data, kind of distill what is the story, come up with visualizations and texts that helps describe it, and what we found is we've gotten a lot of attention for these because they're not only appealing to academics, but a lot of class, a lot of people in education use these, we've also had a lot of attention from the media are very interested in these topics and some local as well as high level national outlets, and so that's exciting, and then what we also do is help train students.

And so we're training graduate students to be the next generation of folks who do this kind of work research.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And then also some undergrads have been involved as well, and we have people who are working at places like the U.S. Census Bureau and Child Trends and other national organizations as well as at universities.

So it's exciting to see it moving forward and share these data that can be used in all kinds of ways.

- And I think too, and I'm sure, Krista, you'd say the same thing, that having this information provides us with a way to look forward to plan, and whether it's a government agency or whatever level, it gives them information to say, "Oh, this is something we need to look at, what programs do we have that that address this?

Or what don't we have that we should have, or what will we need in the future?"

So it gives us a look downstream a little bit which we would need to do that and make sure we're providing support services, whatever it is for all of these different things you do, because it isn't just about grandparents, you do a huge scope of all this.

- [Wendy] We cover all kinds of topics ranging from, we focus on single hood and young adults, all across the lifespan, older folks, we look at marriage cohabitation- - [Krista] Childbearing.

- [Wendy] Childbearing, fertility.

So we have a and we're always relying on population-based probability samples, largely from the Federal Government U.S. Census Bureau data that are very highly regarded, and we're trying to just present what we believe are the patterns and trends, and then people can use it and move forward, like you said, in all kinds of directions, it kind of sets the groundwork.

And we're told by Bowling Green that our webpage is one of the highest performing ones on campus, so that's sort of exciting and it shows a lot of people are interested in families.

You know, we all come from a family, and, yeah.

- [Steve] Sure.

And we all, like I say, we're all, as we were talking between the segments that, you know, people may think, "Oh, I'm the only one in this situation, I'm the only one who has, you know, an X year old and I'm raising them, et cetera, et cetera."

And then they find out, "Oh, I'm in the mainstream here."

Or, "If I am feeling like an outlier, well maybe that's okay too."

It gives people idea that they're still part of this larger community, they're not by themselves totally.

Shifting gears a little, now, we've talked about grandparenting, but you have some very recent things on marriage and divorce.

So kind of talk us to that.

We've got about five or six minutes.

- Okay, yeah, we are really excited.

One of our signature products is really this change in marriage rates and divorce rates over time.

We've plotted them since the turn of the century, but really we're focusing on more recent trends.

And so every year, it's sort of exciting to see what's happening, is the marriage rate stable?

It's sort of like the stock market for us in family research, and so we're always... - [Steve] And nearly almost as predictable, right?

I'm just kidding.

- [Wendy] Yeah, well, marriage- - [Steve] A little better, right?

- [Wendy] Yeah, I don't think a family trends shift is radically as the stock market, so yeah- - [Steve] That's a good thing actually.

- [Wendy] Yeah, it's probably good, but in terms of our latest data on marriage rates is, it's really stable.

You hear a lot about what people think is happening, but it's really, the marriage rate hasn't changed much, it's remained relatively flat, there's about 2 million folks get married a year, and we're anticipating that to probably remain about the same, but it is an overall decline over time.

- [Steve] The long term trend is still fewer, but the rate is sort of flattened out a little bit.

- [Wendy] Yes, so the rates sort of flattened, and what we know about that as well is we do profiles also on the age at marriage- - [Steve] Mm, okay.

- [Wendy] And we've talked about this, I think before, is a delay in the age at first marriage in the United States, which mirrors that we see in Europe and other places where it's about age 28 for women and about age 30 for men.

And so every year, we also are seeing how that changes over time.

- [Steve] Is the U.S. dramatically different than other parts of the world and regardless where, because we would assume, oh, you know, we're a fully developed country, we must be shifting differently than say another country that might not be the same economic status or the same developed status.

- Yeah, I think other high income countries sometimes, and so a lot of countries in Europe or Japan or countries like that, you would say we're very similar in terms of this upward trend in the age of first marriage, compared to other countries that are not as economically developed as the United States, they probably have a lower age.

- [Steve] Yeah, and the culture's different, it's all of those things too.

When you look at that and decide, so on the marriage side, we've sorted the rate is still, the trend is still fewer, but it's flattened out.

What about the flip side of that?

Since we have a relatively flat trend on marriage, is the same holding true of people that have gotten married and then decide, well, maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all for whatever reason.

- [Wendy] Well, so the select few who actually get married, there's actually been a decline in divorce.

- [Steve] Oh, really?

- And so there's, I mean, it's just a very ticked down, it's not like a dramatic, not a headline, you just say it's just sort of trending down, but I think sometimes we think kind of based on our own experiences, "Oh, the divorce rate must be going up."

- [Steve] Because everybody's getting divorced.

- Yeah.

- [Steve] You always hear about everybody's getting divorced.

- Everybody's getting divorced but the divorce rate hasn't really changed, it's sort of declining, it's still true that about two fifths of marriages are gonna end in divorce.

It really depends on whether it's a first marriage or a second marriage, but that's sort of our pattern that we see is really this kind of decline in the divorce rate, which sort of makes sense is marriages are becoming more selective.

- [Steve] I was just gonna say more selective so that, the pools define differently than it was 20, 30, 50 years ago where I would say everyone got married but the feeling was that "Oh, everybody was supposed to get married."

- [Wendy] Yes.

- [Steve] Now that's not the case.

- [Wendy] Yes.

- [Steve] So of the people that are, I don't wanna say they're being more selective, but maybe the criteria are more defined or something.

- [Wendy] Yeah, no, you're exactly right.

I think you're a sociologist or demographer under there, you've got it.

- [Steve] No, yeah, that could be real trouble for the world at large, but, okay.

So I mean, Krista, any final thoughts?

We're about a minute, 30 seconds about where we are with marriage and divorce.

What's the next question you're gonna go to then in that series?

Is there a a plan for that yet on what's the next marriage divorce sequence?

- Oh, so the next thing we'll do is, so since the latest data have dropped here recently, we're gonna be able to look at the rates, how they differ between people in our first marriage, versus those who are in what we call a higher order marriage.

- [Steve] Okay.

- And so we'll be able to look at how remarriage has changed over the preceding couple years, and so that'll be the next thing that we do in that series.

And then we also have a series where we look at different sex and same sex couples because same sex couples weren't able to marry until more recently, and so we've been trying to track that over time and to see how that has changed.

So that'll be another thing on the horizon that we'll be working on in January when we come back for the spring semester.

- [Steve] Good, we'll have you on to talk about that as well, because obviously as more data comes in, the more we learn about ourselves, the better off we are and everybody else too, because hey, because we think we know what's going on in the world at large, but sometimes you see the numbers like, "Oh, okay, I wasn't even close to being right about that."

And this kind of helps clear that up because I say we all have anecdotal things we can relate to, said "Well, yeah, it seems like everyone's getting divorced."

Well, it's not the case and yet it feels sometimes like that.

So this kind of clears our heads a little bit about that as well.

- [Krista] Yeah, well, like I always say to my students, "You all are experts in your family, but we're experts on the family and it's not the same thing."

- [Steve] Good line, that should be the slogan for the center.

- [Wendy] I need a coffee mug.

- [Steve] You better trademark and copyright that right now, so good.

Well, thank you so much for being here, Dr. Wendy Manning, Dr. Krista Westrick-Payne, BGSU National Center for Family Marriage Research.

We will see you again next week on "The Journal."

Check us out at WBGU.org, and of course you can watch the program every Thursday at 8:00 PM on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight, and good luck.

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