Family Changes and Consequences for Children's and Youths' Growing Up Conditions, Children, 1995

"Family changes and consequences for children's and youths' growing up conditions" is a cross-discipline research project where the researchers had background from sociology, psychology, social work, child care and family therapy. The purpose of the project was to study the significance of changes in the family structure and public measures for children's and adolescents' developing conditions. Changes in the family structures are defined as "new ways to start a family, new ways of living in a family" and "new ways of reorganizing families after relationsship break-ups/divorces". The project was lead by professor Kari Moxnes.

The sub-project "Families in relationship break-ups" consists of a quantitative survey and several qualitative interviews.

The survey was a regional investigation of divorces in Trondheim and Orkdal municipalities (in two years, 1992 and 1995), where one or several children under the age of 18 when the divorce took place. Trondheim was chosen because this would make previous surveys (Moxnes 1990) and new surveys comparable, and Orkdal was chosen because one sought contextual variety. Two cohorts was necessary for the sample to be sufficiently large and because it was necessary that the sample both consisted of families that were both close and distant to the divorce.

The questionnaire was sent to both mothers and father, and one had no way of identifying how many of the respondents that had been married to eachother and had children together. Information from each respondent is thus treated as if they provided information about different children. Parents were the original units in the survey, but since the subject was "children's situation after the divorce", one made a different datafile where the children were the unit of analysis.

286 parents wanted to be interviewed. These were contacted per phone and asked few direct questions about their current living/family situation. Parents and children that belonged to especially defined groups were thereafter sampled. In total, 114 parents and 96 children were interviewed. The children were interviewed because they belonged to different groups: Children that..

1. ... have little or no contact with the father since the divorce.
2. ... live in families where there have been contact with the public support system during or after the divorce.
3. ... live in two homes
4. ... have one home and live permanently with father
5. ... have one home and live permanently with mother
6. ... live in step families

Parents belonged to the following groups: Parents that..
1. .. have chosen to share the daily custody of the children
2. .. are mothers that have the daily care of their child alone
3. .. are fathers that have little or no contact with their children
4. .. are fathers that have the daily care of their child alone
5. .. are cohabitation fathers
6. .. are homosexual cohabitation fathers

This datafile contain data about the children. The questionnaire was completed by the parents. The parents had the possibility of answering for up to five children. Parents were the original units of analysis in the survey, but since the subject was "children's situation after the divorce", a separate dataset was created where the children were the units of analysis. NB: It is the parents' information about the children that has been utilized when one created the dataset on the children.