Abstract
AbstractChanging legal and parental practices across Europe led to a higher share of parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) upon separation, who tended to be more affluent and less conflict-ridden. Since SPC became more prevalent, profiles of SPC parents pluralized. Far from these developments, no clearly defined legal pathways toward SPC existed in Switzerland before 2017. Profiling the Swiss case, we examine the prevalence of SPC families, and its associations with parental health and well-being before these legislative changes. Among 875 separated parents of 1,269 minors, SPC (i.e., child alternates between parental homes at least 30% of the time) was practiced by about 11% of the sample. A higher share of SPC parents was highly-educated, yet more financially strained compared to other parents. Although no overall differences in health and well-being emerged between SPC and other separated parents (e.g., with sole custody), SPC-health-linkages varied by gender and education. We conclude that lacking institutional support for SPC and gender-biased employment practices reinforce traditional custody models. Because of costly childcare and more skewed time splits among Swiss SPC parents, SPC may represent more of a resource drain—at least economically—than a relief for the parent shouldering more care duties and expenses.
Highlights
Introduction and Study AimsThe landscape of family forms and living arrangements with and without children is changing rapidly in Switzerland similar to the trends in many other Western nations (Bernardi et al 2018; Sánchez Gassen and Perelli-Harris 2015; Goldschneider et al 2015)
When a 50:50% time split is used, the share of shared physical custody (SPC) children even dropped to 6.5%
In order to address the first hypothesis on the relatively privileged positon of SPC parents compared to NC, SC parents, or parents with visitation rights (VR), we employed multinomial regression models predicting the likelihood of belonging to each custody arrangement
Summary
Introduction and Study AimsThe landscape of family forms and living arrangements with and without children is changing rapidly in Switzerland similar to the trends in many other Western nations (Bernardi et al 2018; Sánchez Gassen and Perelli-Harris 2015; Goldschneider et al 2015). Steady increases in divorce rates and non-marital childbirth across many European countries have, among other reasons, led to growing numbers of lone parents and blended families. Due to the growing numbers of lone parents and blended families, minors are at a higher risk of growing up without the presence of both biological parents in one household (Sobotka and Toulemon 2008; Smyth and Moloney 2008). Even though children are still more likely to stay with their mothers after a separation, changes in legal and cultural practices across Europe have led to a higher share of parents who opt for shared physical custody (hereafter, ‘SPC’; Cancian et al 2014; Juby et al 2005; Kitterød and Lyngstad 2012). How SPC parents decide to split children’s time between the two households, can vary widely from equal amounts of time (50%:50%) to up to at least one-quarter of time (75%:25%) across families and legislative contexts (Baude et al 2016; Meyer et al 2017)
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