The Relationship between Joint Physical Custody and Mothers’ Well-Being. An Analysis of Life Satisfaction, Depressiveness, and Stress

Lara Augustijn , University of Duisburg-Essen

Although research has shown that separation or divorce has negative consequences for mothers, only a few empirical studies have explored the association between joint physical custody – a parental care arrangement in which children live for substantial amounts of time with both par-ents after family dissolution – and mothers’ well-being. To close this research gap, this study investigated the association between physical custody arrangements (joint physical custody vs. sole physical custody) and three dimensions of maternal well-being: life satisfaction, depressive-ness, and stress. Based on data from the Family Models in Germany (FAMOD) survey that was conducted in 2019, OLS regression models were estimated for 996 residential mothers living in post-separation families. The results of the statistical analyses showed that mothers who prac-ticed joint physical custody reported statistically significantly higher levels of life satisfaction, lower levels of depressiveness, and fewer experiences of stress than mothers with sole physical custody. However, after controlling for the mothers’ socio-demographic characteristics and the quality of family relationships, the differences between mothers in joint physical custody and sole physical custody families disappeared, indicating that mothers’ well-being in post-separation families cannot be explained by the physical custody arrangement these mothers prac-ticed. Instead, factors like the mother’s partnership status, the mother-child relationship, and the interparental relationship were found to be more strongly related to maternal well-being than the type of physical custody arrangement.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe