An Icelandic Study of Five Parental Life Styles

Abstract

An Icelandic family study1 of a nationwide random sample of 846 responding parents is presented. It consists of (a) a comparative group of married/cohabiting parents and four groups of single parent families, i.e., (b) widowed parents, (c) parents never in cohabitation, (d) divorced parents with custody (mainly women) and finally (e) divorced parents without custody (mainly men). Fathers without custody is a special group of single parent, families in Iceland (that relates to the social family profile, legislation, divorce rate and proportion of children born out of marriage). The main results of the fathers' situations, their complaints and wishes are presented. The fathers express more discontent with the custody arrangements than their visiting rights. For the other (single parent) groups family interaction is frequent and makes up a strong network of (social and emotional) support. The divorced fathers' marginal position in the family is reflected, i.e., in their restricted pattern of family interaction. The children of divorced parents lose more contact with their grandparents and other relatives in their fathers' family than with their mothers' family. The divorced fathers without custody have longer working hours and less good housing than the other groups. They express their unhappiness over loss of responsibility of their children, They suffer more than the other groups from sleep disturbances and sad thoughts.