Grandparental Involvement, Paternal Residency, and Preschoolers’ Behavioral Adjustment: The Family System in Contemporary China

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Social emotional development in diverse contexts

Abstract

In many urban Chinese families, fathers live apart from their children due to work-related migration, and many grandparents become key caregivers during early childhood. This study examines how grandparental involvement—symbolic (emotional closeness) and functional (daily care)—relates to preschoolers’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and whether paternal co-residency moderates these effects. Drawing on data from 72 grandparent–child dyads in central China, we found that symbolic involvement is linked to fewer internalizing symptoms, only when fathers are not coresident. In contrast, functional caregiving predicts more externalizing behaviors—unless the father also lives at home. These findings reveal how shifting dynamics in who provides care, and in what form, can shape children’s behavioral development in today’s evolving urban families.

Author

• Xinyi PENG, Lancaster University