Researchers, public policy makers, and the media first began to notice an increase in the number of grandchildren living in grandparent maintained households in the early 1990s. The Census Bureau's Current Population Report, Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1992, noted that the number of children under 18 living in grandparent-maintained house-holds increased from 2.2 million in 1970, to 2.3 million in 1980, to 3.3 million in 1992. In 1970, a little over 3 percent of all children under age 18 were living in a home maintained by their grandparents. By 1992, this percentage had increased to nearly 5 percent. More recent data show that this trend has continued. In 1997, 3.9 million children were living in homes maintained by their grandparents — 5.5 percent of all children under 18.