Father–Child Contact, Interparental Conflict, and Depressive Symptoms among Children of Divorced Parents

Abstract

Contact between children and divorced fathers is often believed to strengthen the negative effect of interparental postdivorce conflict on children's well-being. Although this is a well-known hypothesis, there is surprisingly little evidence for it. This article examines the hypothesis using large-scale nationally representative data on secondary school students in the Netherlands. The hypothesis is tested using interactions of conflict with postdivorce contact and interactions of conflict with co-parenting. We find that children of divorced parents have more depressive symptoms than children of married parents. Interparental conflict after divorce increases children's depressive symptoms, while father-child contact has no effect. There is a significant interaction between interparental conflict and father-child contact: interparental conflict increases depression more when there is more contact between the father and the child. This is only observed for boys and not for girls. For girls, depression is increased when the quality of the tie to the father is poorer. Theoretical explanations are suggested in terms of exposure effects and conflicting loyalties.

Shared Residence After Separation: A Review and New Findings from the Netherlands

“…According to data from Statistics Netherlands, shared residence increased from about 15% for cohorts divorcing before 1999 to 20% for those divorcing between and 2007(CBS, 2009. Other studies using data from the early to late 2000s show similar rates of shared residence, ranging from 15 to 22% (Bakker & Mulder, 2013;De Graaf, 2005;Kalmijn, 2016;Spruijt & Duindam, 2009). 2 There are less than a handful of studies pertaining to the years after the legislative amendments of 2009 encouraging shared residence.…”

“…Because children are likely to alternate between two homes more frequently or experience a longer absence from each parent, shared residence can be associated with instability, and this may be harmful to children, especially young children (Fehlberg, Smyth, Maclean, & Roberts, ; Harris‐Short, ). Furthermore, children run a greater risk of being exposed to parental conflict, suggesting that shared residence is especially harmful in the presence of enduring high levels of parental conflict (Harris‐Short, ; Kalmijn, ).…”

“…Dutch evidence about variations in child well‐being across residence arrangements is limited and mixed . Small‐scale studies that only include few cases with shared residence have found no significant (Spruijt & Duindam, ; Spruijt & Kormos, ) or a limited beneficial effect of shared residence on child well‐being—only for boys and bordering at the 5% significance level (Kalmijn, ).…”

“… These studies have some limitations. Most studies include only a few cases with shared residence (Kalmijn, ; Spruijt & Duindam, ; Spruijt & Kormos, ) and some exclude father residence (Kalmijn, ). Furthermore, some studies include few controls when analyzing the effect of shared residence on child well‐being (Spruijt & Duindam, ; Spruijt & Kormos, ), so that the likely selectivity of shared‐residence families may partly explain the findings.…”

“…Comparisons are difficult because studies vary in the outcomes that are studied. Furthermore, some studies gathered data among parents (Westphal, 2015) and others among adolescents (Kalmijn, ; Spruijt & Duindam, ; Spruijt & Kormos, ).…”