Cooperation among parents living apart

Using Norwegian survey data from 2012 the current report investigated cooperation among parents living apart. Five measures of parental cooperation were investigated: Parental conflict, satisfaction with level of parent-child contact, agreement on rules for children, cooperation on children’s’ leisure time activities and contact agreement. We were particularly interested in differences across children’s living arrangements. In addition we assessed potential differences in parental cooperation across respondents’ union status (at union dissolution and interview), number of common children, age of youngest child, and parental level of education.

Results showed that:

• On all five dimensions, parental cooperation was better among parents who practiced shared residence than among those whose children were living with one of the parents.
• Parents who had never lived together more often reported poor cooperation than parents who had been married or cohabiting.
• A higher share of parents who were not living in a co-residential union at time of the interview were in conflict with the other parent compared with those who were married or cohabiting. Single parents less often disagreed about children’s rules, however, and they were more satisfied with the level of contact with their children. The share with a contact agreement was lowest among single parents.
• Regarding the number of common children, parents with one common child more often had conflicts than those with two or more children. Parents with three or more children, on the other hand, were most often satisfied with the level of parent-child contact. The share who agreed on children’s rules as well as the number of parents with a contact agreement increased with the number of children, whereas parents with more than one common child were less often cooperating about children’s leisure time activities than those with one child.
• Parental conflict was most common among parents with small children below the age of 5. Similarly, the shares that were satisfied with the current level of parent-child contact and agreed on the rules for their children increased with children’s age. Parents with older children more often had a private contact agreement than those with younger children.
• In general, higher educated parents more often reported that the cooperation with the other parent was well-functioning than lower educated parents.