The Living Conditions of Children with Shared Residence – the Swedish Example

Emma Fransson (), Sara Brolin Låftman, Viveca Östberg, Anders Hjern and Malin Bergström
Additional contact information
Emma Fransson: Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet
Sara Brolin Låftman: Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet
Viveca Östberg: Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet
Anders Hjern: Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet
Malin Bergström: Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet

Child Indicators Research, 2018, vol. 11, issue 3, No 8, 883 pages

Abstract: Abstract Among children with separated parents, shared residence – i.e., joint physical custody where the child is sharing his or her time equally between two custodial parents’ homes – is increasing in many Western countries and is particularly common in Sweden. The overall level of living among children in Sweden is high; however, the potential structural differences between children in various post-separation family arrangements have not been sufficiently studied. Potential risks for children with shared residence relate to the daily hassles and stress when having two homes. This study aims at investigating the living conditions of children with shared residence compared with children living with two custodial parents in the same household and those living with one custodial parent, respectively. Swedish national survey data collected from children aged 10–18 years (n ≈ 5000) and their parents were used. The outcomes were grouped into: Economic and material conditions, Social relations with parents and peers, Health and health behaviors, Working conditions and safety in school and in the neighborhood, and Culture and leisure time activities. Results from a series of linear probability models showed that most outcomes were similar for children with shared residence and those living with two custodial parents in the same household, while several outcomes were worse for children living with one parent. However, few differences due to living arrangements were found regarding school conditions. This study highlights the inequalities in the living conditions of Swedish children, with those living with one parent having fewer resources compared with other children.

Keywords: Divorce; Shared parenting; Child health; Family policy; Joint physical custody; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12187-017-9443-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:chinre:v:11:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s12187-017-9443-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... f-life/journal/12187

DOI: 10.1007/s12187-017-9443-1

Access Statistics for this article

Child Indicators Research is currently edited by Asher Ben-Arieh

More articles in Child Indicators Research from Springer, The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().