Grandfathers ― Global Perspectives

This is the first book to bring together international scholars fromaround the world and from a wide variety of disciplines, to discover what isknown about grandfathers and analyse the impact of close involvement with theirgrandchildren. Within the context of increased divorce rates, single parentfamilies and healthier, more active elders, grandfathers have come out of theshadows and re-invented themselves in a new caring, nurturing role.

These original studies demonstrate that grandfather involvement is independentlyand positively associated with higher levels of child well-being in the UK andSouth Africa, as well as in Arab and Israeli teenagers, and pre-school childrenin England.

The chapters conclude that societies could benefit from encouragingmore grandfathers to become actively involved in their grandchildren’s lives andargues the case for grandparent visitation rights in those countries thatcurrently do not have them.?

Ann Buchananis Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate at theUniversity of Oxford, UK. She has been researching into child and familywell-being, specifically fathering, grandparenting and divorce, for more thantwenty years. At Oxford she directed the Centre for Research into Parenting andChildren. Her work has an international profile and she was awarded an MBE in 2012.

AnnaRotkirch is Research Director at Vaestoliitto,the Family Federation of Finland, studyingfamily ties and childbearing from sociological and evolutionary perspectives.She is Director of the longitudinal study of generational transmissions inFinland which follows the baby boomer generation and their adult children. Previous publications include(with Ann Buchanan, eds.) Low Fertilityand Population Decline?(Palgrave, 2013).