Mothers’ Economic Well-Being in Sole and Joint Physical Custody Families

Abstract

Previous research has repeatedly shown that separation or divorce can lead to a substantial decline in economic resources, and that it is mostly mothers who suffer from the severe economic consequences. Because it has also been established that the post-separation care arrangement that a family practices is a central factor in explaining mothers’ poor economic situations after family dissolution, this study investigated the association between physical custody arrangements (sole physical custody, asymmetric joint physical custody, and symmetric joint physical custody) and the economic well-being of 1018 residential mothers from the Family Models in Germany study. The results of the ordered logistic regression models showed that mothers in asymmetric and symmetric joint physical custody families reported higher levels of economic well-being than mothers with sole physical custody. When controlling for a set of confounders, the differences between mothers with sole physical custody and symmetric joint physical custody disappeared, which suggests that the economic advantages of mothers with symmetric joint physical custody can be fully explained by factors like the mothers’ working hours, their personal net income, their partnership status, and the fairness of their financial arrangement with their former partner. In contrast, the relationship between asymmetric joint physical custody and mothers’ economic situations remained significant even after control variables were included in the regression models. However, the question of what role selection processes among parents play in explaining the observed differences in post-separation economic well-being between mothers in sole and joint physical custody families remains open.

Post-separation Care Arrangements and Parents’ Life Satisfaction: Can the Quality of Co-parenting and Frequency of Interparental Conflict Explain the Relationship?

“…Given that separation and divorce have been linked to a decline in economic well-being (Mortelmans, 2020) and social contact (Kalmijn & van Groenou, 2005), practicing JPC should also improve the well-being of resident parents because sharing physical custody equally or almost equally with the other parent allows for more time to invest in other life domains, such as paid employment, leisure activities, and personal relationships. In line with these assumptions, studies have demonstrated that for mothers, practicing JPC was associated with fewer problems in combining paid employment and child care (Bakker & Karsten, 2013), a greater probability of being employed (Bonnet et al, 2018), and higher self-assessed economic well-being (Augustijn, 2023). Furthermore, research demonstrated that JPC was positively linked to mothers' chances of repartnering (Schnor et al, 2017) as well as their participation in personal leisure activities outside the home-even though post-separation care arrangements were not related to the social life of fathers (Botterman et al, 2015).…”

The Economic Well-Being of Nonresident Fathers and Custodial Mothers Revisited: The Role of Paternal Childcare

“…Studies based on German data come to different conclusions on the permanence of income losses after separation, depending on the data and sample. Augustijn (2022) investigates the association between separated mothers' subjective evaluations of economic well-being and the physical custody arrangement, based on a sample drawn from the 2019 Family Models in Germany (FAMOD) study. The researcher concludes that mothers in joint custody settings fare better than their peers with sole custody.…”