Custodial Grandparents in Latino Families: Patterns of Service Use and Predictors of Unmet Needs

During the past quarter century, the number of children ages 18 and under who live in households headed by grandparents has increased by more than 50 percent, from 2.2 million in 1970 to 3.9 million in 1997 (Lugaila, 1998). Moreover, whereas the number of children living with grandparents with neither parent present increased by only 6 percent during this period, it nearly tripled from a half million in 1990 to 1.5 million in 1997 (Lugaila, 1998). A combination of social and health problems - for example, joblessness, child abuse and neglect, teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and particularly substance abuse - has contributed to this rapid growth of skipped-generation families. At present, just over one in 10 grandparents in the United States assumes parental responsibility for a grandchild for at least a six-month period at some point in his, or more likely her, life (Fuller-Thomson, Minkler, & Driver, 1997). Custodial grandparents are from all racial and ethnic groups, socioeconomic levels, and geographic regions. Nationally, 68 percent are white, 29 percent are African American, 10 percent are Hispanic (of any race), 2 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander, and 1 percent are American Indian (Chalfie, 1994). However, African Americans were nearly twice as likely in 1991 to be grandparent caregivers as their white counterparts (9 percent compared with 5 percent), and more than 12 percent of African American children lived with grandparents, compared with 5.8 percent of Hispanic and 3.6 percent of white children (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1991). Previous studies of custodial grandparents either have focused on African Americans (Burton, 1992; Dressel & Barnhill, 1994; Minkler & Roe, 1993) or whites (Jendrek, 1994) or compared the two groups (Solomon & Marx, 1995). Studies by Joslin and Brouard (1995), Shore and Hayslip (1994), and Fuller-Thomson et al. (1997) included small numbers of Latinos but did not examine this group in analyses. However, Latino national origin groups are heavily concentrated in large cities (Chapa & Valencia, 1993), where the social and economic contexts of family life may result in more similar rates between Latino and African American households of skipped-generation families. A recent study by the New York City Center for Policy on Aging reported comparable proportions of African American (6 percent) and Latino (4.4 percent) elderly people living in grandparent-grandchild-only households, compared with only 0.8 percent of same-aged whites (Cantor & Brennan, 1993). And Joslin and Brouard (1995) found similar rates of grandparent caregiving in predominantly African American Central Harlem (9.7 percent) and primarily Hispanic East Harlem (7.3 percent) in a random sample drawn from low-income pediatric clinics in New York City. This article examines the self-identified needs, patterns of service use, and predictors of unmet needs among a sample of Latino grandparent caregivers in New York City. Referring to a long-standing debate in gerontology about the relative importance of age versus need in policy formulation and service delivery for older adults (Neugarten, 1982), Dressel and Barnhill (1994) argued that the role-related needs of custodial grandparents often supersede age-related needs. Research on foster parents, especially kinship foster parents, provides helpful insights on these role-related needs. However, about two-thirds of relative-caregivers are grandparents, who tend to be older than either parents or foster parents (Chalfie, 1994; Harden, Clark, & Maguire, 1997), and a disproportionate number are poor women of color (Berrick, Barth, & Needell, 1994; Chalfie, 1994; LeProhn, 1994). Some needs and service use patterns thus are expected to be linked to chronological age and developmental life stage and to the effects of current and cumulative economic disadvantage. Literature Review A full discussion of foster and kinship care is beyond the scope of this article; refer to Harden et al. …