In a university town in southwest Nigeria, the bonds between young adults and their grandparents are neither unbroken chains of tradition nor simple stories of generational rebellion. They are, according to new research, carefully negotiated relationships in which affection, obligation, resistance and autonomy coexist in sometimes uneasy tension. A study published in Ageing International by Catherine Okeh, Temitayo Oluwakemi Akinpelu, Olusola Esther Adewole and Ojo Melvin Agunbiade, researchers based at Obafemi Awolowo University and Osun State University, offers a detailed portrait of how Nigerian undergraduates interpret their relationships with older relatives, and the findings complicate widespread assumptions about the erosion of family solidarity in rapidly changing societies.
The research team conducted eight gender-segregated focus group discussions with 72 undergraduates aged between 18 and 25 years. Participants received information about the study and provided written informed consent, with participation voluntary and audio recording separately consented to. Transcripts were anonymised before analysis, and audio files were stored on a password-protected device under the custody of the research team. The researchers then applied reflexive thematic analysis, a qualitative method in which themes are developed through the researchers’ active interpretation of the data rather than through mechanical coding, using the theoretical lenses of intergenerational solidarity and intergenerational ambivalence to sensitise their reading of the transcripts.
Intergenerational solidarity, the framework that anchored the study, refers to the emotional, practical and normative support that flows between generations within families. The concept, formalised in classic work by Vern Bengtson and colleagues, describes how family bonds are maintained across age divides. The authors stress that in settings such as Nigeria, where formal systems of long-term care and social protection are limited, this kind of family-level solidarity carries particular weight. Yet, as they argue, solidarity is not an automatic consequence of kinship. It is negotiated within changing family, cultural and socioeconomic conditions, and it can be strengthened or strained by the circumstances in which families find themselves.
To capture the contradictions within these bonds, the researchers drew on intergenerational ambivalence, a theoretical approach developed by Kurt Lüscher and Karl Pillemer and extended by Ingrid Connidis and others. Ambivalence theory holds that family relationships routinely contain simultaneously positive and negative elements: love alongside resentment, duty alongside the desire for independence. Rather than treating such contradictions as signs of family breakdown, the framework allows researchers to ask how people manage, justify and sometimes repair the tensions embedded in their closest ties. This proved essential for interpreting what the Nigerian students actually said about their grandparents.
From the analysis, five themes emerged. The first concerned cultural images of ageing, in which older people were understood through representations of wisdom, dependence and frailty. Grandparents could be venerated as sources of knowledge and moral guidance, but the same cultural scripts also framed them as vulnerable and dependent. The second theme portrayed solidarity itself as a negotiated and potentially repairable relationship. Crucially, the researchers found that participants did not simply reject grandparental authority. Instead, they negotiated where, when and how that authority was considered legitimate, accepting guidance in some domains while contesting it in others.
The third theme was perhaps the most striking: gendered spiritual suspicion directed particularly towards materially vulnerable older women. The study found that ageing stereotypes among the students included suspicions that linked older women, especially those in precarious economic circumstances, to witchcraft. This finding connects the university sample to a broader and deeply troubling pattern documented across sub-Saharan Africa, where accusations of witchcraft have been linked to human rights violations against older women. The authors situate their interpretation within intersectional thinking, noting that age, gender and economic vulnerability combine to place certain older women at heightened risk of stigma and harm.
The fourth theme involved what the researchers call contested relational jurisdiction, meaning disagreements over the proper boundaries of grandparental influence. Students described friction around intimacy, appearance, religion and sociability, domains in which grandparents’ expectations clashed with young adults’ own sense of autonomy. A grandparent might be welcomed as an authority on moral or practical matters while being resisted when commenting on clothing, romantic relationships or religious practice. The fifth theme concerned the relational infrastructure of solidarity, the underlying conditions that made connection possible or difficult in the first place. Here the students pointed to migration, which separates generations geographically; parental mediation, in which parents act as bridges or barriers between grandparents and grandchildren; language, which shapes whether meaningful communication is even possible; and family conflict, which can sever or strain the ties that solidarity depends upon.
The methodological choices of the study deserve attention. Gender-segregated focus groups were used, with the fourth author moderating the male discussions and the first and second authors facilitating the female groups and taking fieldnotes for both. This design reflects an awareness that talk about family, sexuality and spiritual suspicion may unfold differently in single-gender settings. Reporting followed the COREQ checklist, a 32-item standard for qualitative research transparency, and the authors declare no external funding and no competing interests. The researchers also note that confidentiality among focus group participants could be encouraged but not guaranteed, an honest acknowledgement of the limits of group-based qualitative methods.
The findings carry implications well beyond the university campus. The World Health Organization’s global report on ageism has highlighted the social separation of old and young as a root of ageism, and cross-cultural research has documented how media portrayals and social structures reinforce negative images of older adults. This study suggests that ageism among educated young Nigerians is not a uniform attitude but a differentiated set of beliefs, some of which coexist with genuine respect and affection. For practitioners designing intergenerational programmes, the message is that solidarity cannot be assumed or simply commanded; it must be built through attention to the relational and structural conditions, such as communication, language and family conflict, that the study identifies.
The research also speaks to a larger question confronting societies across Africa and beyond: how families will care for ageing members as populations grow older, economies shift and younger generations migrate to cities and abroad. Studies from Cameroon, Senegal and Kenya have documented how changing intergenerational relations affect the health and material support of older adults, and the Nigerian findings add a crucial qualitative dimension by showing how young people themselves understand these bonds. In the end, the picture that emerges from southwest Nigeria is one of contested but resilient connection: young adults who question, negotiate and sometimes resist their grandparents’ authority, yet who continue to value the relationship enough to argue about where its legitimate boundaries lie. That ongoing negotiation, the authors suggest, is itself a form of solidarity, and understanding it may prove essential for protecting older people in societies where the family remains the primary infrastructure of care.
Subject of Research: Intergenerational solidarity and ageing stereotypes among university students in southwest Nigeria
Article Title: Contested Connections: Intergenerational Solidarity and Ageing Stereotypes Among University Students in Southwest Nigeria
Article References: Okeh, C., Akinpelu, T. O., Adewole, O. E., & Agunbiade, O. M. (2026). Contested Connections: Intergenerational Solidarity and Ageing Stereotypes Among University Students in Southwest Nigeria. Ageing International, 51(4), Article 42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-026-09683-7
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s12126-026-09683-7
Keywords: intergenerational solidarity, ageing stereotypes, grandparent-grandchild relations, intergenerational ambivalence, Nigeria, university students, ageism, witchcraft accusations, reflexive thematic analysis, family relations, gerontology, Yoruba
News Source: Ophelia Keating. (October 10, 2026). Young Nigerians Negotiate, Not Reject, Grandparental Authority, Study Finds. Scienmag.
