Children and Parents Visitation and Residence, 2020

The survey on Children and parents' contact and residence is funded by the Ministry of Children and Families. The questionnaire has been prepared by Statistics Norway (SSB) in collaboration with representatives from Ministry of Children and Families. The survey is aimed at parents who do not live together. Both parents of 2,349 children have been selected to participate. Only children under the age of 18 are surveyed.

Statistics Norway (SSB) has previously conducted three surveys on visitation and residence (or contributions) among parents who do not live together in 2002, 2004 and 2012. All were conducted with funding from the Ministry of Children and Families. The surveys have somewhat different focus and content, but also good comparability in several important areas.

The first two surveys in 2002 and 2004 were part of the work to evaluate the reform of the scheme for payment of child support, which was carried out in the autumn of 2003. In the autumn of 2012 / winter 2013, Statistics Norway, with funding from the Ministry of Children and Equality, conducted a new survey. The Ministry of Children and Equality wanted more knowledge about how different families arrange everyday life and family life after a break-up. In this survey, contact and housing arrangements for children are an important topic. The focus on the financial distribution of maintenance expenses between the parents has been toned down somewhat, in favor of questions about the children's influence in terms of the design of visitation and residence agreements and a more detailed description of the actual visitation, e.g. changes over time for the individual child. In 2012, they were also asked about how the parents shared the responsibility for the children between them before they separated, how they collaborate on, for example, the children's leisure activities at the time of the interview and about the parents' state of health. It is emphasized that comparison across the surveys should be possible.