Stability in children’s residential arrangements and distance to nonresident parents in the 10 years after parental separation

Abstract

BACKGROUND Existing studies investigating children’s living arrangements after parental separation and geographic distance to the nonresident parent focus primarily on the situation shortly after separation. Little is known about how children’s residence with and distance to parents evolve with time elapsed since separation. OBJECTIVE We investigate for the first 10 years following parental separation with which parent the child lives and how far the child lives from the nonresident parent for Belgian children whose parents separated in their early childhood (0 to 6 years).