Postdivorce Parent–Child Contact and Child Well‐being: The Importance of Predivorce Parental Involvement

• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12474
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Author: Anne‐Rigt Poortman

A-R P Utrecht University

Postdivorce Parent–Child Contact and Child

Well-being: The Importance of Predivorce Parental

Involvement

Frequent parent–child contact after divorce is

generally assumed to be in children’s best inter-

ests, but ndings are mixed. This study extends

the small body of research about the conditions

under which parent–child contact is more ben-

ecial or less benecial by examining the role

of predivorce parental involvement. It is argued

that the more a parentwas involved in child rear-

ing in the past, the more important postdivorce

parent–child contact is for child well-being.

Data from the Netherlands (N=3,694) show

that when children live with the parent who was

not the primary caretaker, child well-being is

lower. Similarly, the more the father used to be

involved in child rearing, the more benecial

nonresident father–child contact is for children.

These ndings suggest that it is not so much the

frequency of contact per se that matters for child

well-being but, rather, the extent to which postdi-

vorce residence arrangements reect predivorce

parenting arrangements.

Ever since divorce rates started to rise, schol-

ars have studied the link between postdivorce

parent–child contact and child well-being.

Their assumption has been that postdivorce

Department of Sociology/Interuniversity Center for Social

Science Theory and Methodology, Utrecht University, P.O.

Box 80.140, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands

(a.poortman@uu.nl).

Key Words: child well-being, divorce, parent involvement,

parents.

contact with both parents is in children’s best

interests, yet most studies found no associa-

tion between nonresident father–child contact

and child well-being (Adamsons & Johnson,

2013; Amato & Gilbreth, 1999). Results for the

increasingly common shared residence arrange-

ment (i.e., joint physical custody) offer more

support, but research is scarce and effect sizes

are small (Baude, Pearson, & Drapeau, 2016).

Other aspects of the parent–child relationship,

such as its quality, are therefore assumed to be

more important than contact (Amato & Gilbreth,

1999).

Previous ndings relate to average associa-

tions. Few studies have examined the condi-

tions under which parent–child contact is more

benecial or less benecial. Besides sociode-

mographic variations (e.g., King, 1994), most

researchers have studied postdivorce parental

conict as a source of variation in the asso-

ciation between parent–child contact and child

well-being. These studies found that nonresident

father–child contact or shared residence was

benecial when conict was low,but had adverse

effects on child well-being in high-conict sit-

uations (Kalmijn, 2016; Vanassche, Sodermans,

Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2013).

The predivorce family contextmay be another

important modifying condition (Videon, 2002).

Research showed increased delinquent behav-

ior in adolescents residing with the same-sex

parent with whom they had a bad relationship,

but decreased delinquency when the relation-

ship was good. The current study examines

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (June 2018): 671–683 671

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12474