Grandparent? You’ve got lots of company

Grandparents represent a bigger chunk of the population than ever before, according to new data from the Census Bureau.

The number of grandparents in the United States rose to 69.5 million in 2014, up from 65.1 million in 2009, the bureau reported last week. The youngest baby boomers turned 50 in 2014, and the country’s 75.4 million boomers make up an exceptionally large pool of potential grandparents.

The number of grandpar- ents has grown by 24 percent since 2001. That year was the first time the Survey of Income and Program Participation asked the question “Are you a grandparent?” of respondents who were at least 30 years old and who had a child at least 15 years old.

In 2001, there were an estimated 56.1 million grandparents.

“We would expect more people reporting to be grandparents because of the aging of t he populati on, ” s a i d Wendy Manning, a sociologist who is the director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research at Bowling Green State University.

In 2001, 38 percent of women age 30 or older with a child at least 15 years old were grandparents, as were 31 percent of men in that category.

The new survey showed growth in both groups: In 2014, 61 percent of these women and 57 percent of these men were grandparents.

Of all adults age 30 and older, 37 percent are grandparents, 2014 data show.