Grandparents
Living
With
Grandchildren: 2000
Census 2000 was the first time that questions on grandparental caregiving were included in the decennial census.
The percentage of grandparents living with grandchildren varied sharply by race and Hispanic origin.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, Summary File 4
More than half of American Indian and Alaska Native and Black grandparents who lived with grandchildren were responsible for them.
Younger grandparents were more likely to be responsible for their grandchildren.
The West had the highest percentage of grandparents living with grandchildren.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, Summary File 3, special tabulations
At the state level, Hawaii had the highest percentage of grandparents living with grandchildren (7 percent), while North Dakota had the lowest (1.3 percent).
SOUTH
48.3%
MIDWEST
44.4%
NORTHEAST
34.3%
WEST
36.0%
Grandparents as Caregivers
By Regions and States: 2000
OK
58.5%
WY
58.6%
AL
55.9%
AK
52.0%
AZ
45.4%
AK
58.1%
CA
31.8%
CO
42.6%
CT
34.1%
DE
43.2%
MI
42.0%
GA
47.6%
FL
42.7%
KY
51.5%
HI
28.5%
ID
46.5%
IL
40.2%
IN
50.1%
IA
46.4%
KS
50.7%
LA
54.9%
ME
38.9%
MD
40.6%
MA
28.4%
MN
39.1%
MO
48.7%
MS
57.1%
MT
54.5%
NE
48.6%
NV
41.3%
NH
30.9%
NJ
31.6%
NM
52.2%
NY
34.7%
NC
49.7%
SC
52.0%
ND
54.8%
OH
46.4%
OR
43.2%
PA
39.2%
RI
29.8%
SD
57.8%
TN
51.1%
TX
46.7%
UT
40.4%
VT
36.3%
VA
42.5%
WA
41.8%
WI
42.3%
WV
52.4%
In 2000, 39 percent of grandparent caregivers had been responsible for their grandchildren for 5 or more years.
San Diego, California, had the lowest percentage of coresident grandparents among the ten largest cities in the United States.
Of the 5.8 million coresident grandparent in 2000, 64 percent were women.
Thirty-four percent of grandparent caregivers were householders or spouses who were living with their grandchildren without the presence of the parents of their grandchildren. These households are often designated as “skipped generation households.”
Census 2000 showed that, on average, 19 percent of grandparent caregivers had incomes below the poverty level in the United States in 1999.
