Patterns of intergenerational support in grandparent-grandchild and parent-child relationships in Germany

ANDREAS HOFF* The paper focuses on intergenerational support relations between grandparents and their grandchildren in Germany, and how they have changed from 1996 to 2002. The paper begins with a brief review of the literature on functional aspects of the grandparent-grandchild relationship, after which the research hypotheses about intergenerational support in the relationship are elaborated. Following a description of the data source, the German Ageing Survey, and its samples and measures, the evidence on the patterns of grandparents ’ provision and receipt of intergenerational support to and from their grandchildren are presented and compared with parent-child support patterns. The analysis also considers varia-tions by age groups and birth cohorts and changes over time. The main empirical finding is that there was a greater likelihood of financial transfers to grandchildren in 2002 than six years earlier. Nevertheless, the grandparents ’ relationships with their grandchildren remained imbalanced or asymmetrical, at the older gener-ation’s expense. It was found that financial and instrumental support patterns between grandparents and grandchildren were best explained using an ‘ inter-generational stake ’ hypothesis rather than one of ‘ intergenerational solidarity ’; the latter is more consistent with parent-child support patterns. KEY WORDS – grandparents, intergenerational relations, intergenerational solidarity, intergenerational stake, informal support, Germany