Work/Family Conflict Among Separated European Parents: Is Joint Physical Custody a Solution?

Background: Many single parents report significant conflicts between their paid work and the time needed to care for their children, and this conflict can lead to increased stress and decreased well-being for both parents and children. One recent reform affecting separated parents is joint physical custody (JPC), in which children live with both parents, rather than primarily living with one (sole physical custody, SPC). Because parents with JPC share responsibility for caring for children more equally, they may experience fewer conflicts between work and family life than SPC parents. On the other hand, JPC requires time and negotiations for coordinating the child’s transitions between two households, and these demands may mean JPC parents experience more work-family conflict than parents with SPC.

Research questions: We provide the first comparative analysis on the relationship between children’s postseparation living arrangements and parents’ work-family conflict. We ask whether those with JPC report more or less work-family conflict than those with SPC, whether this difference remains once characteristics of children and families are included, and whether this relationship differs across 11 countries.

Data/method: We use data from 2,934 separated parents in 11 countries in the 2021 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Survey (EU-SILC), Work-family conflict is measured with a single item on whether the main reason parents did not spend more time with their children was their work. JPC is measured with a single question regarding the number of overnights in an average month that the child stayed with the respondent, with 10-20 overnights counting as JPC and 21-31 counting as SPC. We begin with bivariate analyses, then add in family characteristics, then indicators for country, using logistic regressions.

Results: In bivariate statistics, JPC parents have less work-family conflict than SPC parents, but the difference is not statistically significant. This pattern continues when characteristics are added. However, once countries are controlled, the difference becomes statistically significant: JPC parents are 3 percentage-points less likely to report work-family conflict. Control variables tend to show expected relationships, with younger mothers and those with younger children reporting more work-family conflict.

Implications: Some previous research has shown benefits of JPC for children and parents, including facilitating mothers’ paid work, but samples have often been small, from a single location, or have not controlled for other characteristics. This research adds new information on a benefit of JPC using a large sample across multiple countries and controlling for other characteristics. The finding that JPC’s relationship to work-family conflict is not revealed until the country context is controlled means that JPC is only associated with lower stress in selected countries; this implies that countries examine their policy framework to assess whether they permit or even promote JPC and whether other family policies support couples choosing this relatively new family form.