Post-separation families: Residential arrangements and everyday life of separated parents and their children

This dissertation is about post-separation families, their residential arrangements and the organization and practising of their everyday post-separation (family) life. Divorce and separation are common life events in most Western countries. In the Netherlands, 30% of all children under age 18 witness the separation of their parents. There are two common residential arrangements after parental separation. The dominant post-separation residential arrangement is still the resident mother arrangement in which the children stay with their mother and have contact with their non-resident father on a regular basis. Over the last decade, however, the popularity of the resident mother arrangement has diminished and shared residence arrangements have gained popularity.
Nowadays, 27% of Dutch children with separated parents live with both parents alternately on an equal or nearly equal basis. In other words; those children live dual-locally. In these shared residence arrangements parental care is divided equally in terms of residential arrangement, (financial) responsibility, caregiving, supporting school-related activities and spending leisure time.
The main research question addressed in this dissertation is: How can the choice of a particular post-separation residential arrangement be explained, and how do separated parents involved in different types of post-separation residential arrangements organize and practise everyday (family) life? This question was explored in four empirical studies, each addressing a different part of the research question, that were presented in separated chapters in this dissertation. The empirical evidence presented in this dissertation is derived from a mixed methods research, combining data from large-scale longitudinal surveys with data from 35 in-depth interviews.