Session: Family Diversity, Family Policy, and Well-Being in Separated Families Around the World (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Families are changing around the world; we focus here on two of these changes, increases in single-mother families and increases in families in which the children of separated parents live with each parent about half the time (joint physical custody (JPC) or shared residence). The resulting family diversity may mean these families are not well served by policies developed during a period when more children lived in nuclear families, yet we know relatively little about how family policy in different countries treats different family configurations, and even less about the relationship between family configuration and family wellbeing in different family policy contexts. This symposium brings together five novel papers that provide information on key policies that affect children in several different countries, with a particular focus on whether policies and policy contexts have consistent effects across different family forms and in different countries.

Single-mother families are economically disadvantaged in most countries, and some countries have responded by encouraging or requiring single mothers to work. Paper #1 (Does living with kin...) examines whether living with kin (typically grandparents) facilitates single mothers' employment in seven countries in the Americas. Paper #2 (Work-family conflict...) explores whether JPC can facilitate mother's working, using data on 11 European countries. Both papers use quantitative analyses with large cross-national datasets.

Even if these diverse family forms are associated with increased employment (or decrease work-family conflict), there may be offsetting effects. Paper #3 (The Deservingness of Single Mothers...) uses case studies in five countries to examine whether child support obligations are lower when mothers work. If they are, this could result in single mothers having lower total income than they would expect based on their wages.

The final two papers in this symposium focus on the effects of JPC and changes in residential arrangements; both papers use data from Scandinavia and longitudinal methods. Paper #4 (Child mental health...) finds that Norwegian children's externalizing behavior problems are higher when they change residence arrangements. Paper #5 (The effect of physical custody...) shows that transitions to JPC are associated with more satisfaction in the adolescent/parent relationship in Sweden.

While each presentation will provide results for their particular research questions, across the papers, consistent findings include: different employment outcomes in different country contexts (#1 and #2), and novel positive effects of either stability in residence or in changes to JPC (#4 and #5, and, to some extent #2).

In contrast to much of the prior comparative work that focuses only on the US and Europe, these papers include not only these countries but also countries in South and Central America. Presenters, discussants, and the audience will discuss what US policymakers can learn from the approaches and experiences of other countries. The two senior discussants will also comment on the strengths and limits of comparative policy research. Thus, the audience will not only learn about family diversity in different country contexts, family policy in different countries, and family outcomes across countries, but also is challenged to consider changes to US policy.