Changes in Legal Regulations, Parental Health and Well-Being, and Children’s Physical Custody Arrangements among Post-Separation Families in Switzerland

ABSTRACT

This study examines the prevalence and socio-demographic profiles of post-separation parents practicing shared physical custody (SPC) in Switzerland, and its associations with parental health and well-being. We analyzed data from two samples of post-separation parents: one surveyed before and one shortly after family law changes facilitating parents’ access to SPC. In both samples, SPC parents represented only a small fraction and SPC was associated with parents’ higher education or less financial strain. SPC-health and -well-being linkages also varied by education. We conclude that prevailing gender-biased employment practices may counteract the broadened access to SPC by reinforcing more traditional sole custody models among less resourceful parents.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared care
• joint physical custody
• well-being
• health disparities
• Europe

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Roch Modeste Millogo for his assistance with data preparation and data analyses of the 2018 sample.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Statement of Ethics

No approval from an institutional or national review board was required because this study used publicly available, de-identified secondary datasets only.

Additional information

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this manuscript: Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research “LIVES—Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives,” which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF; 51NF40-160590). We are grateful to the SNSF for the financial assistance.