The meaning of grandparenthood and its relationship to demographic, relationship, and social participation variables

The meaning of grandparenthood has been a focus of research, especially during the last decade. Types of meanings and variables differentiating these grandparental meanings have been established. Most recently Kivnick (1981, 1982a, 1982b, 1985) has derived a multidimensional framework representing five aspects of the meaning of grandparenthood. The present study attempted to verify whether these five aspects of meaning were related to unique combinations of demographic, social, personal, and health variables. Zero-order correlations showed high intercorrelations among Kivnick's five subscales, and low correlations among the majority of variables. Regression analyses indicated that no more than 30% of the variance in any one of the dimensions could be explained and that considerable overlap existed in the significant predictors across aspects of meanings.