Ed Spruijt

Joint Physical Custody in The Netherlands and the Well-Being of Children

The frequency of contact with fathers and mothers and the amount of parental support for boys and girls is an important issue after divorce, from emotional, legal, and empirical points of view. In the Netherlands between 1998 and 2008, joint physical custody after divorce (when children actually have shared residences) has increased from 5% to 16%. It is therefore interesting to compare the effects growing up in the following different kinds of families actually has on children: (a) mother families with low contact frequency with the father; (b) mother families with high contact frequency with the father; (c) co-parenting families (joint physical custody); and (d) father families. The main conclusion is that, on average, the effects of joint physical custody for children, mothers, and especially for fathers, are slightly positive.

How do vocational and relationship stressors and identity formation affect adolescent mental health

PURPOSE This article examines the effects of stressors in both the vocational and relationship career of youngsters in the formation of their identity; the effects of identity formation on adolescent mental health; the influence of career stressors on mental health, directly or via identity, and differences in these effects on boys and girls. METHODS Data were used from the Dutch national panel study, Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development, a study of developmental processes as they occur in the life course of young people during the 1990s. Using LISREL, we tested hypotheses on two waves of a sample of 1222 respondents between 15 and 24 years of age in Wave 1 (1991). RESULTS The correlation between relationship stressors and relationship identity can be neglected, while vocational stressors lead to a less achieved vocational identity, particularly in boys. Occupational and relationship identity have similar effects on mental health (i.e., the more achieved the identity, the better the persons mental health). Vocational and especially relationship stressors lead to poorer mental health, but did not affect the mental health of boys and girls differently. The same goes for the influence of relationship and vocational identity formation on mental health. CONCLUSIONS Career stressors, especially stressors in the relationship domain, appear to have significant long-term effects on adolescent mental health. Vocational and relationship identity formation are also significant predictors for adolescent mental health.

Marital Status, Marital Process, and Parental Resources in Predicting Adolescents’ Emotional Adjustment: A Multilevel Analysis

This study examined the relationship between adolescent emotional adjustment and the family environment (i.e., family status, family process, and parental resources). This was done by way of multilevel analyses, with a sample of 2,636 parent-child couples of both intact and divorced families. The results indicated that adolescent emotional adjustment was clearly based on the family as well as on the individual. We found support for the hypothesis that growing up both in postdivorce families and in intact families with a low marital quality related negatively to adolescent emotional adjustment. Our hypothesis that parental resources, in the form of parental support, parent-adolescent relationship, and parental psychological health, partly mediate the negative association between low marital quality and divorce on one hand and youngsters’ adjustment on the other hand was also confirmed. Growing up in postdivorce families was especially detrimental for the emotional adjustment of girls.

Effects of parental divorce and youth unemployment on adolescent health

The aim of this study is to gain more insight into the effects of two important events on adolescent health in the life course of youngsters, namely parental divorce and being unemployed. We made use of the dataset of the Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development, a longitudinal panel study, based on a representative sample of young people in the Netherlands (12-24 years old). We used the data of non-school-going youngsters who are at least 18 years old. Parental divorce does indeed have negative effects on adolescent health: however, this applies only for girls. Being unemployed or having been unemployed has negative effects on psychological health, especially for boys. But this experience does not have negative effects on physical health, either for boys or girls. Any conclusions on the consequences of parental divorce and youth unemployment for adolescent health have to be specified, at least for sex.

Caring fathers in the Netherlands

Data from two studies on heterosexual men and their care work at home are discussed. Five groups of fathers are distinguished. They range from the traditional father (hardly any care work within the home) to the very caring father (who does at least as much as his wife). What makes the difference between these five groups of men? Measures at three levels have been studied: present social context, value orientation, and family of origin of the fathers. Measures at the first and second levels seem to be the most important. The role of the female partner is also discussed. Caring men do not report a lesser degree of well-being, including the quality of their relationship.

Family Traditionalism and Family Structure

The present study examined how tolerance toward nontraditional family forms relates to family structure, by examining differences between youngsters and parents from intact and postdivorce families. We also explored whether intergenerational transmission of attitudes toward nontraditional family forms differed between intact and postdivorce families. We made use of three-wave longitudinal data of 959 adolescents and young adults aged 12 years to 24 years at the first wave, and also of one of the parents. Longitudinal multilevel analyses revealed that both youngsters and parents of postdivorce families are more tolerant toward nontraditional family forms and that parental attitude transmission is significantly lower in families after a divorce. Results apply to respondents of a broad age range. Several explanations are suggested for the flawed intergenerational transmission of attitudes in postdivorce families.

Gezinsstructuur en internaliserend en externaliserend probleemgedrag van adolescenten en jongvolwassenen

SamenvattingIn dit longitudinale onderzoek op drie meetmomenten bij 1274 adolescenten en jongvolwassenen, van 12 tot 24 jaar op het eerste meetmoment, werden langetermijnverschillen in internaliserend en externaliserend gedrag onderzocht tussen jongeren uit intacte en gescheiden gezinnen. Verder werden mogelijke verschillen tussen de gezinstypen bestudeerd in de groeicurves van internaliserend en externaliserend gedag. Longitudinale multilevel analyses lieten zien dat jongeren uit gezinnen na scheiding gemiddeld meer internaliserende en externaliserende problemen hebben dan jongeren uit intacte gezinnen. De ontwikkeling van de twee typen probleemgedragingen verschilt echter niet aan de hand van gezinsstructuur.