Objective: This analysis tests the association between parental divorce and maternal employment o... more Objective: This analysis tests the association between parental divorce and maternal employment on adult children's gender role attitudes. Background: After parental divorce, mothers may increase gainful employment and fathers increase housework. These new roles may influence children's views on gender equality. Method: Data from two waves of the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS), conducted in 1999 and 2003, based on a nationally representative sample of 2,491 respondents aged 22, 26, 30, and 34 years, are used for analyses. Maternal employment and childhood family type, i.e. intact family, single mother, single father, and mother and stepfather, are measured with retrospective questions. Attitudes towards gender equality are examined in the public sphere of work, the private sphere of the family, and a combined-sphere measure. Results: Maternal full-time employment (versus non-or part-time employment) is associated with more modern private and combined sphere gender role attitudes, whereas family type in childhood is only weakly associated with young adult gender role attitudes. One exception is young adults from single father families (versus intact family), who express more modern private sphere gender role attitudes. Mothers' full-time employment and growing up with a mother and stepfather is more positively associated with women's than men's modern gender role attitudes. Conclusion: Parental family disruption adds little, maternal full-time employment adds more, to our understanding of what shapes gender role attitudes in adulthood.
One of the most obvious consequences of divorce is the moving out of one or both ex-partners from... more One of the most obvious consequences of divorce is the moving out of one or both ex-partners from the formerly common household. Here we focus on a particular postdivorce residential move, the return to the parental home in Sweden, where intergenerational coresidence is uncommon. We ask whether family dissolution increases the likelihood of intergenerational coresidence among separated/divorced individuals who have at least 1 child below age 18. Furthermore, we ask whether the strength of the effect depends on socioeconomic and geographical factors. Our analysis of 670,777 individuals from Swedish population register data shows that even if living with parents is, in absolute terms, not a common intergenerational support strategy, its likelihood increases considerably after a family dissolution. This event increases the probability of living with one's parents especially among men, those with low incomes, and those who live close to their parent(s). We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on patterns of intergenerational support across Europe.
This study investigates whether shared residence parents experience higher life satisfaction than... more This study investigates whether shared residence parents experience higher life satisfaction than sole and nonresident parents, and whether frequent visitation is similarly related to parents' life satisfaction as shared residence. Regression analyses on data from 4,175 recently divorced parents show that shared residence parents report higher life satisfaction than other, particularly nonresident, parents, but that this relationship can largely be explained by benefits and opportunity costs of parenthood. Shared residence fathers enjoy a better relationship with their child and their ex-partner and are more engaged in leisure activities than nonresident fathers. Shared residence mothers are more involved in leisure activities, employment, and romantic relationships than sole resident mothers. These differences contribute to the shared residence parents' higher life satisfaction. Frequent interaction between the nonresident father and the child could partly, but not completely, substitute for shared residence, increasing both nonresident fathers' and sole mothers' life satisfaction.
In this paper, we ask whether the time spent in the parental home promotes the frequency of conta... more In this paper, we ask whether the time spent in the parental home promotes the frequency of contacts between generations, and whether violating social norms regarding the socially accepted time for leaving home is related to less frequent interactions with parents in later life. We also devote particular attention to union dissolution and family conflict during childhood and adolescence as possible mechanisms behind this relationship. Employing multilevel linear probability models, data from two waves of the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000 and 2010) are used to analyze earlier family history and face-to-face contacts between parents and their adult children. The findings reveal that the duration of co-residence is likely to foster family interactions in later life, and this positive relationship is only marginally explained by childhood family experiences. However, late home leavers tend to maintain frequent contacts with parents in part owing to having moved shorter geographical distances, and this is more evident for adult daughters than for sons. In addition, adult daughters who stay at home for longer have more opportunities to form binding relationships with mothers than with fathers.
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2021
A common assumption in comparative family policy studies is that employers statistically discrimi... more A common assumption in comparative family policy studies is that employers statistically discriminate against women in countries with dual-earner family policy models. The empirical evidence cited in support of this assumption has exclusively been observational data, which should not be relied on to identify employer discrimination. In contrast, we investigate whether employers discriminate against women in Sweden—frequently viewed as epitomizing the dual-earner family policy model—using field experiment data. We find no evidence supporting the notion that Swedish employers statistically discriminate against women.
It is well known that couples tend to relocate for the sake of the man's career rather than the w... more It is well known that couples tend to relocate for the sake of the man's career rather than the woman's, also known as the "trailing spouse phenomenon." The role of employer choices in this process is unknown however. If employers are hesitant to make job offers to women who live a long way from the workplace (e.g., because of work-family balance concerns or a perceived risk that they will not follow through on their applications, or stay hired if employed), this tendency might constitute an underlying mechanism behind the moving premium of partnered men. Ours is the first study to empirically test whether employers prefer geographically distant men over geographically distant women. We sent applications for 1,410 job openings in the Swedish labour market, randomly assigning gender and parental status to otherwise equivalent applications from cohabiting or married women and men and recorded employer callbacks to these. The results indicate that employers in general tend to disfavour job applicants who live a long way from the employer's workplace. This tendency is stronger for women, both for mothers and for women with no children. Our estimated effects are imprecise but clearly suggest that employer recruitment choices contribute to the trailing spouse phenomenon by offering men a larger pool of geographically distant jobs. We call for more research on this hitherto ignored mechanism behind the trailing spouse phenomenon.
Advanced labor markets are typically stratified by origin with a majority ethnic group occupying ... more Advanced labor markets are typically stratified by origin with a majority ethnic group occupying more desirable (high-skilled) positions and subordinated ethnic minorities occupying less desirable (low-skilled) positions. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether employer recruitment choices reinforce these patterns. This would be the case if employers were more reluctant to hire subordinate minority job applicants for high-skilled positions than for low-skilled occupations. We use experimental correspondence audit data derived from 6407 job applications sent to job openings in the Swedish labor market, where the 'foreignness' of the job applicants has been randomly assigned to otherwise equally merited job applications. We find that negative discrimination of job applicants with 'foreign' names is very similar in the high-skilled and lowskilled segments of the labor market. There is no significant relative ethnic difference in chances of callbacks by skill level. Because baseline callback rates are higher in high-skilled occupations, discrimination however translates into a significantly larger percentage unit callback difference between 'natives' and 'foreigners' in these occupations, in particular between male job applicants. That is, the number of (male) 'foreign' job seekers subject to ethnic discrimination in terms of actually being denied a job chance is higher in the highly skilled segment, but the effects on the relative scale do not suggest this to be driven by employers being particularly less welcoming of 'foreigners' in this segment.
I denne studien la vi systemisk familieteori til grunn for å undersøke hvordan mønstre for foreld... more I denne studien la vi systemisk familieteori til grunn for å undersøke hvordan mønstre for foreldrekonflikter varierer med familieform blant foreldre som nylig har vaert i kontakt med Familieverntjenesten. Formålet var å øke kunnskapen om mønstre for foreldrekonflikter i familier med saerlige utfordringer. Data ble hentet fra FamilieForSK-studien. Deltakerne ble rekruttert da de møtte til samtaler eller mekling i Familieverntjenesten. Analysene er basert på svarene foreldrene ga på en rekke strukturerte spørsmål om konflikter og samhørighet dem imellom. Regresjonsanalyse ble brukt til å sammenligne mønstre for konflikter mellom foreldredyader i ulike familieformer som skiller seg fra hverandre ved om foreldrene bor sammen eller ikke, og i grad av kompleksitet på familiesystemet i form av tilstedevaerelse av nye partnere eller saerkullsbarn. Vi fant at mønstre for konflikter varierer med familieform blant foreldre som nylig har vaert i kontakt med et familievernkontor. Blant foreldre som bodde sammen var det ingen forskjeller i konfliktmønstre mellom foreldredyader med eller uten saerkullsbarn (kjernefamilier versus ny-kjernefamilier). Sammenlignet med foreldre som bodde fra hverandre, hadde foreldre i kjernefamilier større omfang av konflikter, men også bedre konfliktløsning og mindre
International Journal of Health Services, Dec 26, 2016
Alternate living, i.e. children living 50-50 with their parents following separation is emerging ... more Alternate living, i.e. children living 50-50 with their parents following separation is emerging as a new family form. This study is the first to differentiate separated mothers with sole/main custody from mothers with alternately living children, analysing health outcomes and using a sample representative of the population. The association between the self-rated health (SRH) of mothers and different family structures are examined. Parental cooperation is included in the analyses as a potential mediator. Data on 755 mothers from the 2010 Swedish Level of Living Survey were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression. Single mothers with sole/main custody reported poorer SRH than couple mothers in intact families while the difference was not significant for single mothers with children living alternately and mothers in stepfamilies. Controlling for potential confounders, probabilities for poor SRH for single mothers were reduced. The excess risk among mothers with sole/ main custody may be due to poorer socioeconomic conditions. Employment was significantly more common among mothers with alternate living and an important explanatory factor for their better health compared to single mothers with sole/main custody. Adjusting for parental cooperation lowered the increased probability for poor SRH among single mothers with sole/main custody compared to single mothers with alternate living.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Parental time with children is important for children's developmental outcomes. Family type may a... more Parental time with children is important for children's developmental outcomes. Family type may affect the amount of time parents can and will invest in children. Using time-use panel data obtained from two waves of the Danish Time Use Survey, linked with administrative records, the study shows that parental family type had a substantial impact on the time parents spent with children. When controlling for constant unobserved individual traits, likely to affect both time-use and family type, differences in time-use increase, indicating positive selection into nonintact family types. Single parents and parents in reconstituted families spent less time on developmental activities, such as talking, reading and playing with the child, whereas parents living in reconstituted families also spent less time on non-developmental activities, such as transporting the child or performing basic childcare. Based on our findings, there are indications that cross-sectional results showing little difference in parents' involvement in children across family types partly emanate from differential selection in family types.
Leaving home at a very young age, particularly when not in conjunction with attending school away... more Leaving home at a very young age, particularly when not in conjunction with attending school away from home, appears to have a variety of negative consequences for the trajectory of young adults into successful career patterns and stable families. In this article, we examine the relationship between childhood family structure and nest-leaving patterns in the Swedish context. To our knowledge, this has never been done before. Analyses show that individuals from disrupted childhood families leave their parental home earlier than other young adults. The present state of knowledge is extended with analyses of the impact of adding a stepparent and of family conflict, and we distinguish between young adults leaving home to enter a union, to attend school, or to form a household of their own.
The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedis... more The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedish Ministry of Employment, situated in Uppsala. IFAU's objective is to promote, support and carry out scientific evaluations. The assignment includes: the effects of labour market policies, studies of the functioning of the labour market, the labour market effects of educational policies and the labour market effects of social insurance policies. IFAU shall also disseminate its results so that they become accessible to different interested parties in Sweden and abroad.
Data from the 1981 and 1991 Swedish Level of Living Surveys are used to analyze any impact of div... more Data from the 1981 and 1991 Swedish Level of Living Surveys are used to analyze any impact of divorce on individuals' psychological well-being. The longitudinal structure of the data set makes it possible to follow respondents, and any change in their civil status, over time. The results reveal that divorcees, both female and male, reported a higher risk for psychological distress in 1991 than did their married and cohabiting or remarried counterparts. In general, this is only to a very limited extent because of divorcees having a lower well-being already before the divorce (in 1981), and the difference in well-being cannot be entirely explained by other factors (e.g., income or access to social support) either. An interesting gender difference is found as psychological distress precedes divorce among women, whereas, instead, it lasts longer following divorce among men.
Objective: This analysis tests the association between parental divorce and maternal employment o... more Objective: This analysis tests the association between parental divorce and maternal employment on adult children's gender role attitudes. Background: After parental divorce, mothers may increase gainful employment and fathers increase housework. These new roles may influence children's views on gender equality. Method: Data from two waves of the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS), conducted in 1999 and 2003, based on a nationally representative sample of 2,491 respondents aged 22, 26, 30, and 34 years, are used for analyses. Maternal employment and childhood family type, i.e. intact family, single mother, single father, and mother and stepfather, are measured with retrospective questions. Attitudes towards gender equality are examined in the public sphere of work, the private sphere of the family, and a combined-sphere measure. Results: Maternal full-time employment (versus non-or part-time employment) is associated with more modern private and combined sphere gender role attitudes, whereas family type in childhood is only weakly associated with young adult gender role attitudes. One exception is young adults from single father families (versus intact family), who express more modern private sphere gender role attitudes. Mothers' full-time employment and growing up with a mother and stepfather is more positively associated with women's than men's modern gender role attitudes. Conclusion: Parental family disruption adds little, maternal full-time employment adds more, to our understanding of what shapes gender role attitudes in adulthood.
One of the most obvious consequences of divorce is the moving out of one or both ex-partners from... more One of the most obvious consequences of divorce is the moving out of one or both ex-partners from the formerly common household. Here we focus on a particular postdivorce residential move, the return to the parental home in Sweden, where intergenerational coresidence is uncommon. We ask whether family dissolution increases the likelihood of intergenerational coresidence among separated/divorced individuals who have at least 1 child below age 18. Furthermore, we ask whether the strength of the effect depends on socioeconomic and geographical factors. Our analysis of 670,777 individuals from Swedish population register data shows that even if living with parents is, in absolute terms, not a common intergenerational support strategy, its likelihood increases considerably after a family dissolution. This event increases the probability of living with one's parents especially among men, those with low incomes, and those who live close to their parent(s). We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on patterns of intergenerational support across Europe.
This study investigates whether shared residence parents experience higher life satisfaction than... more This study investigates whether shared residence parents experience higher life satisfaction than sole and nonresident parents, and whether frequent visitation is similarly related to parents' life satisfaction as shared residence. Regression analyses on data from 4,175 recently divorced parents show that shared residence parents report higher life satisfaction than other, particularly nonresident, parents, but that this relationship can largely be explained by benefits and opportunity costs of parenthood. Shared residence fathers enjoy a better relationship with their child and their ex-partner and are more engaged in leisure activities than nonresident fathers. Shared residence mothers are more involved in leisure activities, employment, and romantic relationships than sole resident mothers. These differences contribute to the shared residence parents' higher life satisfaction. Frequent interaction between the nonresident father and the child could partly, but not completely, substitute for shared residence, increasing both nonresident fathers' and sole mothers' life satisfaction.
In this paper, we ask whether the time spent in the parental home promotes the frequency of conta... more In this paper, we ask whether the time spent in the parental home promotes the frequency of contacts between generations, and whether violating social norms regarding the socially accepted time for leaving home is related to less frequent interactions with parents in later life. We also devote particular attention to union dissolution and family conflict during childhood and adolescence as possible mechanisms behind this relationship. Employing multilevel linear probability models, data from two waves of the Swedish Level of Living Survey (2000 and 2010) are used to analyze earlier family history and face-to-face contacts between parents and their adult children. The findings reveal that the duration of co-residence is likely to foster family interactions in later life, and this positive relationship is only marginally explained by childhood family experiences. However, late home leavers tend to maintain frequent contacts with parents in part owing to having moved shorter geographical distances, and this is more evident for adult daughters than for sons. In addition, adult daughters who stay at home for longer have more opportunities to form binding relationships with mothers than with fathers.
Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 2021
A common assumption in comparative family policy studies is that employers statistically discrimi... more A common assumption in comparative family policy studies is that employers statistically discriminate against women in countries with dual-earner family policy models. The empirical evidence cited in support of this assumption has exclusively been observational data, which should not be relied on to identify employer discrimination. In contrast, we investigate whether employers discriminate against women in Sweden—frequently viewed as epitomizing the dual-earner family policy model—using field experiment data. We find no evidence supporting the notion that Swedish employers statistically discriminate against women.
It is well known that couples tend to relocate for the sake of the man's career rather than the w... more It is well known that couples tend to relocate for the sake of the man's career rather than the woman's, also known as the "trailing spouse phenomenon." The role of employer choices in this process is unknown however. If employers are hesitant to make job offers to women who live a long way from the workplace (e.g., because of work-family balance concerns or a perceived risk that they will not follow through on their applications, or stay hired if employed), this tendency might constitute an underlying mechanism behind the moving premium of partnered men. Ours is the first study to empirically test whether employers prefer geographically distant men over geographically distant women. We sent applications for 1,410 job openings in the Swedish labour market, randomly assigning gender and parental status to otherwise equivalent applications from cohabiting or married women and men and recorded employer callbacks to these. The results indicate that employers in general tend to disfavour job applicants who live a long way from the employer's workplace. This tendency is stronger for women, both for mothers and for women with no children. Our estimated effects are imprecise but clearly suggest that employer recruitment choices contribute to the trailing spouse phenomenon by offering men a larger pool of geographically distant jobs. We call for more research on this hitherto ignored mechanism behind the trailing spouse phenomenon.
Advanced labor markets are typically stratified by origin with a majority ethnic group occupying ... more Advanced labor markets are typically stratified by origin with a majority ethnic group occupying more desirable (high-skilled) positions and subordinated ethnic minorities occupying less desirable (low-skilled) positions. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether employer recruitment choices reinforce these patterns. This would be the case if employers were more reluctant to hire subordinate minority job applicants for high-skilled positions than for low-skilled occupations. We use experimental correspondence audit data derived from 6407 job applications sent to job openings in the Swedish labor market, where the 'foreignness' of the job applicants has been randomly assigned to otherwise equally merited job applications. We find that negative discrimination of job applicants with 'foreign' names is very similar in the high-skilled and lowskilled segments of the labor market. There is no significant relative ethnic difference in chances of callbacks by skill level. Because baseline callback rates are higher in high-skilled occupations, discrimination however translates into a significantly larger percentage unit callback difference between 'natives' and 'foreigners' in these occupations, in particular between male job applicants. That is, the number of (male) 'foreign' job seekers subject to ethnic discrimination in terms of actually being denied a job chance is higher in the highly skilled segment, but the effects on the relative scale do not suggest this to be driven by employers being particularly less welcoming of 'foreigners' in this segment.
I denne studien la vi systemisk familieteori til grunn for å undersøke hvordan mønstre for foreld... more I denne studien la vi systemisk familieteori til grunn for å undersøke hvordan mønstre for foreldrekonflikter varierer med familieform blant foreldre som nylig har vaert i kontakt med Familieverntjenesten. Formålet var å øke kunnskapen om mønstre for foreldrekonflikter i familier med saerlige utfordringer. Data ble hentet fra FamilieForSK-studien. Deltakerne ble rekruttert da de møtte til samtaler eller mekling i Familieverntjenesten. Analysene er basert på svarene foreldrene ga på en rekke strukturerte spørsmål om konflikter og samhørighet dem imellom. Regresjonsanalyse ble brukt til å sammenligne mønstre for konflikter mellom foreldredyader i ulike familieformer som skiller seg fra hverandre ved om foreldrene bor sammen eller ikke, og i grad av kompleksitet på familiesystemet i form av tilstedevaerelse av nye partnere eller saerkullsbarn. Vi fant at mønstre for konflikter varierer med familieform blant foreldre som nylig har vaert i kontakt med et familievernkontor. Blant foreldre som bodde sammen var det ingen forskjeller i konfliktmønstre mellom foreldredyader med eller uten saerkullsbarn (kjernefamilier versus ny-kjernefamilier). Sammenlignet med foreldre som bodde fra hverandre, hadde foreldre i kjernefamilier større omfang av konflikter, men også bedre konfliktløsning og mindre
International Journal of Health Services, Dec 26, 2016
Alternate living, i.e. children living 50-50 with their parents following separation is emerging ... more Alternate living, i.e. children living 50-50 with their parents following separation is emerging as a new family form. This study is the first to differentiate separated mothers with sole/main custody from mothers with alternately living children, analysing health outcomes and using a sample representative of the population. The association between the self-rated health (SRH) of mothers and different family structures are examined. Parental cooperation is included in the analyses as a potential mediator. Data on 755 mothers from the 2010 Swedish Level of Living Survey were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression. Single mothers with sole/main custody reported poorer SRH than couple mothers in intact families while the difference was not significant for single mothers with children living alternately and mothers in stepfamilies. Controlling for potential confounders, probabilities for poor SRH for single mothers were reduced. The excess risk among mothers with sole/ main custody may be due to poorer socioeconomic conditions. Employment was significantly more common among mothers with alternate living and an important explanatory factor for their better health compared to single mothers with sole/main custody. Adjusting for parental cooperation lowered the increased probability for poor SRH among single mothers with sole/main custody compared to single mothers with alternate living.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch ge... more Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence.
Parental time with children is important for children's developmental outcomes. Family type may a... more Parental time with children is important for children's developmental outcomes. Family type may affect the amount of time parents can and will invest in children. Using time-use panel data obtained from two waves of the Danish Time Use Survey, linked with administrative records, the study shows that parental family type had a substantial impact on the time parents spent with children. When controlling for constant unobserved individual traits, likely to affect both time-use and family type, differences in time-use increase, indicating positive selection into nonintact family types. Single parents and parents in reconstituted families spent less time on developmental activities, such as talking, reading and playing with the child, whereas parents living in reconstituted families also spent less time on non-developmental activities, such as transporting the child or performing basic childcare. Based on our findings, there are indications that cross-sectional results showing little difference in parents' involvement in children across family types partly emanate from differential selection in family types.
Leaving home at a very young age, particularly when not in conjunction with attending school away... more Leaving home at a very young age, particularly when not in conjunction with attending school away from home, appears to have a variety of negative consequences for the trajectory of young adults into successful career patterns and stable families. In this article, we examine the relationship between childhood family structure and nest-leaving patterns in the Swedish context. To our knowledge, this has never been done before. Analyses show that individuals from disrupted childhood families leave their parental home earlier than other young adults. The present state of knowledge is extended with analyses of the impact of adding a stepparent and of family conflict, and we distinguish between young adults leaving home to enter a union, to attend school, or to form a household of their own.
The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedis... more The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedish Ministry of Employment, situated in Uppsala. IFAU's objective is to promote, support and carry out scientific evaluations. The assignment includes: the effects of labour market policies, studies of the functioning of the labour market, the labour market effects of educational policies and the labour market effects of social insurance policies. IFAU shall also disseminate its results so that they become accessible to different interested parties in Sweden and abroad.
Data from the 1981 and 1991 Swedish Level of Living Surveys are used to analyze any impact of div... more Data from the 1981 and 1991 Swedish Level of Living Surveys are used to analyze any impact of divorce on individuals' psychological well-being. The longitudinal structure of the data set makes it possible to follow respondents, and any change in their civil status, over time. The results reveal that divorcees, both female and male, reported a higher risk for psychological distress in 1991 than did their married and cohabiting or remarried counterparts. In general, this is only to a very limited extent because of divorcees having a lower well-being already before the divorce (in 1981), and the difference in well-being cannot be entirely explained by other factors (e.g., income or access to social support) either. An interesting gender difference is found as psychological distress precedes divorce among women, whereas, instead, it lasts longer following divorce among men.
Uploads
Papers by Michael Gahler