Statistics on grandparent care

It’s always interesting to look through a pile of statistics. The organisations Grandparents Plus and AgeUK dug through various reports on grandparents providing childcare. Here are some highlights:

• The value of grandparental childcare in the UK in 2010/11 was £7.3 billion, up from £3.9 billion in 2004.
• In 2011, 28% of families where both parent work used grandparent childcare, 25% of lone parents, and 14% of non-working families.
• Nearly two thirds (63%) of all grandparents with grandchildren under 16 are providing some childcare, with one in five (19%) grandmothers providing at least 10 hours a week.
• Employment rates are lower for grandmothers than for women who are not grandmothers. While grandparents generally view providing childcare as a positive choice, there is some evidence of women giving up work to provide childcare.
• European data indicates that the grandmothers most likely to provide childcare are those who are younger, fit, healthy, and with young grandchildren.

The organisations say:

most informal childcare is provided by grandmothers aged 55 to 64 who are not working, because at the moment there are many more grandmothers in this group. However a significant minority of grandmothers are already combining work with childcare: and grandparents who are working are more likely to say they look after their grandchildren than those who are retired, reflecting the fact that working grandparents are generally younger and their grandchildren are also younger. As the proportion of working grandmothers increases, it will be of growing importance that they are able to combine work with supporting families through providing grandchild care, to avoid the emergence of a care gap.