The Role of Grandmothers in Low-Income Hispanic Families

Paula Fomby, Johns Hopkins University

A growing body of research emphasizes the significant contributions that grandparents make to family functioning, but relatively little is known about the role of grandparents in Hispanic families in the United States. The proposed research seeks to fill that gap by focusing on maternal grandmother involvement in low-income families where the mother is a Hispanic woman. I use data from the Three-City Study to predict maternal grandmother’s involvement with children as a function of mother’s foreign-born status and Hispanic ethnicity (whether Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, or Puerto Rican). I then explore the association between maternal grandmother’s involvement and child care arrangements, availability of social support, and mother’s work status. I also compare these findings to a sample of low-income African-American and white families to consider how grandmother’s involvement varies by race and ethnicity.