The paper presents an experimental study on effect of monovalent and divalent cations on volume change of ionic gels. The results showed that the gel shrank during the hydrolysis in basic solutions with divalent cations, but swelled in solutions with monovalent cations of similar concentration and pH value. The shrunk gel swelled again to a size larger than that before the hydrolysis in a solution of monovalent cations. The behaviour is believed due to the ionic crosslinks that were formed by clustering of ion pairs in the gel. The results suggest that the clusters with divalent cations are much stronger than those with monovalent cations, and that the ionic crosslinking should be considered for analysis of volume transition in the ionic gels.