Family relationships and child wellbeing in post-separation families

分居后家庭的家庭关系和儿童福祉

• 批准号: 434010343
• 负责人: Dr. Sandra Krapf
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Staatsinstitut für Familienforschung (ifb) an der Universität Bamberg
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/434010343?language=en
• 关键词: Family; relationships; child; wellbeing; post

Existing research indicates that children whose parents have separated fare worse in terms of their cognitive, social, psychological, and health outcomes than children who live in a nuclear family; i.e., with two biological parents in the household. But can high-quality family relationships buffer the negative effects of living in a post-separation family arrangement? In light of the unique stressors and demands faced by stepfamilies and one-parent families, the proposed project investigates to what extent positive family relations enable children to cope successfully with new family structures in Germany. The focus of the research is on the relationship quality of up to five family dyads: the resident parent–child, the nonresident parent-child, the biological parents, and (in the case of stepfamilies) the stepcouple as well as the stepparent–child dyad. Because parental separation has become increasingly common in many western countries, such buffering effects have implications for the wellbeing of a sizeable and growing proportion of the child population. Although a large number of studies on the association between family structure and child outcomes have been published, only a few representative datasets allow researchers to analyse the impact of complex (step)family relationships on child wellbeing in post-separation families. The few studies on this topic have found that positive (step)family relations are associated with higher levels of child wellbeing. However, there are some drawbacks of the existing studies. First, little is known about how different family dyads are interrelated. Second, many of the studies had to deal with very small case numbers. Third, most of the existing research was conducted in the US context. Whether the results found in the US can be extended to European countries is unclear, because there are considerable societal as well as institutional differences across countries. Using data from the German Family Panel pairfam, the family relationships and wellbeing of eight- to 15-year-old children in stepfamilies (n=425) and one-parent families (n=277) are investigated. In some of the empirical analyses, these two groups will be compared to 2,211 children living in nuclear families. Investigating this rich dataset will shed light on the question of whether child outcomes in one-parent families and stepfamilies vary depending on the family relations they are exposed to. Moreover, analysing these issues in the German context will indicate to what extent the results found in the US can be replicated in a European country.

现有的研究表明，父母分居的儿童在认知、社会、心理和健康方面的结果比生活在核心家庭中的儿童更差;即，家里有两个亲生父母但是，高质量的家庭关系能否缓冲分居后家庭安排的负面影响？鉴于再婚家庭和单亲家庭面临的独特压力和需求，拟议的项目调查在德国积极的家庭关系在多大程度上使儿童能够成功地科普新的家庭结构。研究的重点是多达五个家庭的二元关系的质量：居民的父母，孩子，非居民的父母，亲生父母，（在继家庭的情况下）继夫妇以及继父母的孩子二元。由于父母分居在许多西方国家越来越普遍，这种缓冲效应对相当大的儿童人口的福祉产生了影响，而且这一比例还在不断增加。虽然已经发表了大量关于家庭结构与儿童结局之间关系的研究，但只有少数代表性的数据集允许研究人员分析分离后家庭中复杂（步骤）家庭关系对儿童福祉的影响。关于这一主题的少数研究发现，积极的（继）家庭关系与更高水平的儿童福祉有关。然而，现有的研究也存在一些不足。首先，人们对不同的家庭二元结构是如何相互关联的知之甚少。其次，许多研究不得不处理非常小的病例数。第三，现有的研究大多是在美国背景下进行的。在美国发现的结果是否可以推广到欧洲国家尚不清楚，因为各国之间存在相当大的社会和制度差异。使用德国家庭小组pairfam的数据，家庭关系和幸福的8至15岁的孩子在继家庭（n=425）和单亲家庭（n=277）进行了调查。在一些实证分析中，这两个群体将与生活在核心家庭中的2 211名儿童进行比较。调查这个丰富的数据集将揭示单亲家庭和继家庭的孩子结果是否取决于他们所接触的家庭关系。此外，在德国背景下分析这些问题将表明，在美国发现的结果在多大程度上可以在欧洲国家复制。