The Scottish Government

« Previous | Contents | Next »

Listen

CHAPTER THREE AVAILABILITY OF SOURCES OF INFORMAL SUPPORT

Introduction

3.1 For the purposes of this report, sources of informal support were considered to be family members - including spouses, parents' siblings and the child's grandparents - friends, and other mothers. Although the data did not specifically collect information on parental friendship networks ( i.e. number of friends, closeness of relationships), information collected on household composition, the child's grandparents, and family activities, allow limited measurement of the 'availability' of informal sources to the respondent. That is, the extent to which any individual source could potentially be used by the respondent for information, advice or support.

Other adults in the household

3.2 Initial analysis of the data demonstrated that whilst many parents were not married or cohabiting, because they lived in a household with other adults ² they were not necessarily 'lone' parents. These other adults were considered to be an important, easily accessible and immediate informal resource.

3.3 As well as the respondent, the vast majority of households in both cohorts contained just one other adult (couple households) (Table 3). In almost all (98%) of these households, the other adult was a partner or spouse of the respondent. In around one in six households in the baby cohort, and one in five in the toddler cohort, the respondent was the only adult. A small proportion of households had three or four adults including the respondent (multiple adult households). This was slightly more common in the younger cohort than in the older cohort (7.4% versus 5.8%). As well as partners or spouses of the main respondent, other adults included the child's grandparents, older siblings (of the child) and 'other' relatives (mainly aunts or uncles of the child).

Table 3 Number of adults other than respondent in the household by cohort

Base: All sample

3.4 Younger mothers were both more likely to be in a lone adult household and in a multiple adult household than older mothers were. In the birth cohort, mothers who were aged under 20 ³ were five times more likely to live in lone adult households and almost seven times more likely to live in multiple adult households than mothers in their thirties were (35% compared with 7%, and 27% compared with 4% respectively). In the child cohort, whilst the pattern in lone adult households was similar, mothers aged under 20 were only twice as likely as those in their thirties to live in multiple adult households (12% compared with 5%).

3.5 Around one-quarter (24%) of respondents in routine or semi-routine occupations were living in lone adult households compared with 5% of those in professional occupations. The former group were also more likely than the latter to live in multiple adult households (11% compared with 3%). Patterns were similar by household income - lower income households were both more likely to be lone adult and multiple adult than higher income households were.

Contact with child's grandparents

3.6 Virtually all (99%) children in both cohorts had at least one grandparent alive. Previous analysis on GUS data, and indeed on data from other cohort studies, has increasingly shown the important part that grandparents play in the lives of their grandchildren ⁴. For the purposes of this report, a grandparent was only considered a source of informal support if he or she was in regular contact with the family.

3.7 As may be expected, the vast majority of families in both cohorts had regular contact with at least one of the child's grandparents and many had regular contact with several grandparents (Table 4). In the birth cohort, a little over two-fifths of families were in regular contact with four of the sample child's grandparents.

Table 4 Number of child's grandparents that the family are in contact with by cohort

Base: All children with grandparents

3.8 Children with younger mothers, despite having more grandparents alive, were less likely than those with older mothers to be in contact with all of their grandparents (Table 5). In the baby cohort, around three-quarters (75%) of mothers aged 40 or older were in contact with all of the child's grandparents compared with a little over half of mothers (55%) aged under 20. The higher incidence of lone parent households amongst the younger age groups, and the often poor relations between both natural parents, is likely to explain much of the lack of contact between a child and one set of grandparents in these cases.

Table 5 Proportion of grandparents that the family are in contact with by cohort and age of mother at birth of cohort child)

Base: All children with grandparents

Proximity of child's grandparents

3.9 On studying factors which affected the frequency of contact between grandparents and grandchild, Uhlenberg and Hammill (1998) found geographic proximity to be the strongest predictor of such contact. The data above showed that around one-third of mothers aged under 20 actually lived with at least one of the child's grandparents. Whilst this is an occurrence mainly restricted to younger mothers, many families did have grandparents who lived nearby. Grandparents in these cases can, theoretically, more easily provide important and regular additional forms of support to parents, particularly in terms of regular childcare, than grandparents who are more geographically remote.

3.10 Around 85% of families in both samples reported that at least one of the child's grandparents lived locally, that is, within a 20-30 minute drive. For a little over two-fifths of families, three or four grandparents lived locally (birth cohort 45%, child cohort 42%). This meant that approximately half of all children in both cohorts had all of their grandparents living locally.

3.11 The likelihood of having grandparents living locally decreased as mother's age increased. In the birth cohort, a little over two-thirds of mothers aged 40 or older reported that none of the child's grandparents lived nearby compared with just one in ten mothers in their twenties. For a little over half of mothers under 20 (53%) and of mothers in their twenties (51%) all of the child's grandparents lived locally. This was slightly less common for mothers in their thirties (46%) and significantly less so for mothers aged 40 or older (12%).

Friends and family with medical knowledge or training

3.12 Previous analysis of the GUS data has indicated child health and illness is a significant concern for many parents of young children (Anderson et al, 2007). Having a friend or family member who has medical knowledge or training, and being comfortable asking for advice from that person, can be an extremely useful resource for parents.

3.13 In both cohorts, just under half (46%) of all parents reported having a friend or family member with medical knowledge or training from whom they would feel comfortable asking for informal advice. Mothers with higher educational qualifications were more likely to have access to this resource. Around half with a qualification at Higher grade or above reported knowing someone with medical knowledge or training compared with 37% of those with standard grades and 24% of those with no qualifications. Associations of this nature were also more commonly reported by older mothers than by younger mothers. In the child cohort, around half of mothers in their thirties and mothers aged 40 or older said they knew someone with medical knowledge compared with 37% of mothers aged under 20.

Friends and family with young children

3.14 Friends and family, especially those who also have young children, are a valuable source of informal advice on and support with parenting. Whilst the sweep 1 dataset does not contain a direct measure of the existence or size of the respondent's friendship group, and the extent to which their friends have children, the interview with parents in the child cohort asked how often the sample child was taken to visit friends or family with young children. This information was used as a proxy measure of the availability of friends and family with young children as an informal resource.

3.15 Almost all parents (93%) said they took their child to visit friends or family with young children. The prevalence of this activity was generally high amongst all groups across the sample although there was some variation by maternal age for example, with older mothers more likely to go visiting than younger mothers were (96% of those aged 40 or older compared with 83% aged under 20). On the other hand, younger mothers visited friends or family on a more frequent basis than older mothers did.

Index of availability of informal support

3.16 Thus far it is clear that the availability of and access to different sources of informal support varies by a number of key household and individual characteristics. To obtain a sense of how, overall, access to sources of informal support varies by these same groups, each question was converted to a binary variable which indicated whether or not a particular source was 'available' to the parent. The scores from each of these variables were combined to give an overall score between 0 and 4 for parents in the birth cohort, and 0 and 5 for the toddlers' parents. Respondents were then separated into three groups according to their score on the index indicating a low, medium or high level of access to informal support. Logistic regression was undertaken to more visibly identify the key characteristics determining whether or not a parent fell into the low access group. Table 6 displays scaled results by significant independent variables from the regression. ⁵

Table 6 Scaled availability of sources of informal support by key independent variables: birth cohort

Base: Children in the birth cohort
Row percentages

3.17 In general, the data indicates that virtually all parents have access to some form of informal network, less than 1% of parents had no access and many reported availability of all the sources considered. However, there was some notable variation across the sample indicating a more limited informal network amongst more socially disadvantaged parents. For example, low household income was a particularly powerful predictor of belonging to the 'low access' group. Maternal education was also significant - mothers with no qualifications were significantly more likely than those with any qualifications to be in the low access group. Smaller, but statistically significant, variations also existed by mother's employment and area deprivation with unemployed mothers and those living in more deprived areas more likely to be in the low access group.

3.18 Only small differences were evident between the cohorts. Whilst household income and mother's employment status remain prominent, difficulty seeking help was found to be weakly related to low access in the child cohort but neither area deprivation nor maternal age were significant predictors in the older cohort model.

« Previous | Contents | Next »