1. Intergenerational contributions to childcare across Europe Alison Smith alison.j.smith@ed.ac.uk University of Edinburgh

2. To what extent are grandparents and other relatives caring for children and how does this vary across Europe?

3. Data: The ECHP (European Community Household Panel) Contains information on how much time every adult respondent reports spending looking after children on a weekly basis Every year from 1994 - 2001 inclusive 15 Countries - Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Greece, UK, Spain, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria from wave 2, Finland wave 3, Sweden from wave 4 Initial sample 158,000 individuals, in 55,000 households Information available on various aspects of employment, income and household wealth, living conditions, health, education, family structures

5. Research questions What are the regional differences in intergenerational childcare time? What gender differences are there between grandmothers’ and grandfathers’, and brothers’ and sisters’ childcare time? Are socio-economic factors correlated with intergenerational childcare time consistently across countries? How are different household employment patterns and structures associated with different intergenerational behaviours? Are regional differences in intergenerational childcare time associated with national legislation as regards family policy?