Profiles of Maternal Well-Being in Germany: Do Post-Separation Physical Custody Arrangements Matter?

ABSTRACT

A higher share of parents practices shared physical custody (SPC) upon separation and SPC parents tend to be better educated, more affluent, and less conflict-ridden. This could indicate that SPC parents may be buffered from disparities in well-being that were documented among other post-separation parents. Using latent profile analysis, we identified four distinct profiles of maternal well-being across different life domains. SPC mothers were indeed more likely to belong to a low-strain profile and less likely to belong to a high-strain profile compared to single mothers. We conclude that social disparities both among and between post-separation parents remain highly salient, despite trends toward growing diversity in family constellations, and discuss German welfare state characteristics that may foster these differences.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared care
• joint physical custody
• union dissolution
• psychosocial adaptation
• latent profile analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

Data are publically available for scientific use at https://doi.org/10.17621/aida2009.

Statement of Ethics

Our study was conducted in accordance with local and national guidelines on research ethics. No approval from an institutional or national review committee, as well as no written informed consent from participants, was required because this study relied on secondary analyses of de-identified and publically available data only.