The COVID-19 crisis has challenged social workers globally. In Belgium, a national lockdown was declared in March 2020 and companies and organisations had to take appropriate measures and adapt quickly to downsize the coronavirus. This study therefore researches dynamics or adaptations that social workers in Flanders, Belgium, experienced during this crisis and on what they would like to preserve in the future ('good practices'), as well as on the challenges or barriers ('bottlenecks') they experienced and would like to eliminate. Based on an extensive survey research in April/May 2020, this study shows how social work organisations and social workers were not prepared at all for a crisis like the pandemic but adapted to this new situation quickly and to the best of their abilities. In doing so, they noticed several good practices related to working from home (WFH), digitalisation, and solidarity. On the other hand, they also experienced bottlenecks related to reduced or lacking face-to-face contact, digitalisation, accessibility, and information flow. In conclusion, this study shed light on several good practices and bottlenecks and raised several questions that should be thoughtfully taken into account in order to establish systems that benefit the client, the social worker, and the organisation.

Objective: This paper describes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the family lives of young adults whose parents had been through a high-conflict divorce and the extent to which these 18-to-30-year-olds believed the COVID-19 measures accommodated for their family situation. Background: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on family lives has been described in recent literature but no attention has been paid to young adults experiencing parental conflict due to a divorce transition impasse. Method: Data from 24 in-depth interviews were collected in the Belgian province of Limburg using a semi-structured interview guide with open questions and analysed via Nvivo. Results: Frequency of contact with parents decreased, contact with parents living abroad became nearly impossible. Different interpretations of and approaches to the rules led to frustration and quarrelling in families. The quality of the relationship with parents changed, often in a negative way. Respondents indicated that to their opinion due consideration had not been given to the situation of young adults with divorced parents. Conclusion: In order to adequately develop COVID-19 rules that are tailored to a wide range of families, with attention to the most vulnerable ones, we recommend that policy makers define a family by using a “feeling family paradigm” rather than defining a family in terms of a household and that they include a multi-actor and multi-disciplinary perspective in the decision-making processes.

In recent years, Flanders has witnessed a notable upsurge in the public attention for cohousing and other types of shared living arrangements (e.g. Jonckheere et al. 2010; Van den Houte et al. 2015...

The COVID-19 pandemic has rampaged through the daily life of individuals, increasing existing vulnerabilities and bringing about new ones. Social service workers act in close proximity and connection with these vulnerable groups, and measures taken to decrease the COVID-19 contamination rate — such as working from home, reducing social contacts and most of all lockdowns — negatively affect the core tasks of social service workers. Consequently, these professionals have had to find other ways to reach out to clients. This may potentially change the type of clients who have been reached and prioritized during the pandemic. Moreover, the profile of clients may have changed due to the pandemic. With this study, we address three research questions: (1) Which clients were prioritized by social service workers?, (2) Which clients were not able to be reached by social service workers?; and (3) Do social service workers expect a new vulnerable client base to emerge as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic? To help answer these questions, we used data from the Social Work COVID-19 Survey, obtained from 2,815 social service workers and collected in April and May 2020 during the first Belgian lockdown. The results indicate that urgent cases in need of essential, vital care were prioritized, with social service workers relying more on their gut instincts than on the customary procedures. Second, clients who could not be reached were those with limited access to modern communications, or with lower levels of digital skills. This often coincides with more vulnerable groups (such as people with mental health issues, financial issues, a small social network, the homeless and the elderly). Third, with regard to possible new clients, social service workers anticipate a ‘less standard’ and ‘more temporary’ client base, with more ‘middle-class families’ who have become vulnerable due to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, social service workers expect the pressure in the private life of individuals to increase, and have observed several mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the most frequently voiced concerns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘not to forget the vulnerable groups in society’. Social workers occupy a privileged position with a view to mapping such vulnerabilities, their complex interrelations, and the processes that increase the risk of falling victim to them. Therefore, in order for policy interventions aimed at mitigating negative impact on vulnerable groups to be effective, it is important to gain an in-depth insight into the first hand experiences and concomitant concerns of social workers. The main aim of this article is to describe and categorize the main concerns social workers had about their clients a few weeks into Belgium’s first wave of the pandemic. The data used derive from a large scale online survey taken among social workers in Flanders and the Brussels region in April/May 2020, closely following the lockdown on 18 March. Thematic coding analysis was used to analyse textual answers with regard to concerns about current clients. Concerns fall into six main categories, the most important one being direct concerns about the safety and wellbeing of clients in the context of various life domains (physical and mental health, family, work, education, social networks, housing, financial and material wealth), apart from concerns about communication issues more in general, about changes in the interactional dynamics between social worker and client, the effects of lockdown related changes to forms of social help, about very specific vulnerable groups, and, lastly, about the resilience of the social work sector. Analysis of the connections between concerns also enables us to reconstruct several chains of events that may result in specific (reinforced) vulnerabilities. If policy interventions aim to be attentive to such vulnerabilities, taking stock of these chains of events is of paramount importance.

Experiencing a divorce can be challenging and have a lasting impact on people's lives, but does it change your personality? By making use of large panel surveys from Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, intra-individual change in the Big Five personality traits of those who separated during a four-year observation, was compared to that of those who remained married. We tested the replicability of divorce-induced personality change across the three country samples, while also examining gender differences and separation duration. Latent difference score models mostly indicated that divorce is not a consistent predictor of personality change, as only isolated effects were found, and these could not be replicated across samples. Aside from the overall lack of replicable effects a few isolated effects were detected that offer some support for a modified version of the social investment principle. Nonetheless, the overall finding of this study suggests that experiencing a divorce is unlikely to lead to permanent personality change.

AbstractChildren often live in two households after their parents break up, which may affect their development. We investigate feelings of loneliness among children of separated parents using two alternative hypotheses. The first assumes that children experience “dual family life” as offering opportunities or a richer source of support because of the increased number of close relatives involved in their life, which leads to reduced feelings of loneliness. The alternative hypothesis assumes that children experience stronger feelings of loneliness because of a decrease of intimacy in their personal relationships caused by their dual family life. Our results show that the feelings of loneliness children experience are not explained by their living arrangements, but are influenced by the number of post-divorce relationships their father has and by the presence of a new partner in their mother’s household.

Since the 1970s, several European countries have experienced high union dissolution risk as well as high unemployment rates. The extent to which adverse economic conditions are associated with union instability is still unknown. This study explores the relationship between both individual and aggregate unemployment and union dissolution risk in five European countries before the recent economic crisis. Using rich longitudinal data from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, and Italy, the empirical analysis, based on discrete-time event history models, shows that male unemployment consistently increases the risk of union dissolution. While a strong association is observed between male unemployment and separation at the micro level, no association is found between male unemployment and union dissolution at the macro level. The results for female unemployment are mixed, and the size of the impact of female unemployment is smaller in magnitude than that of male unemployment. In Germany and Italy, where until very recently work is less compatible with family life than in other countries, female unemployment is not significantly associated with union dissolution.

When thinking about custodial arrangements after a divorce, there has been a shift from sole custody (mainly by mothers) to joint physical custody after a divorce. In certain countries, joint physical custody has even become the primary, legal custodial arrangement. Joint physical custody, whether implemented in legislation or not, is believed to be in the best interests of the child, as children can shape a postdivorce relationship with both their mother and father. Nevertheless, many studies on joint physical custody focus only on child outcomes. This study aims to investigate (1) whether custodial arrangements matter in addition to the parental divorce for parent–child relationships and (2) whether joint physical custody provides a better framework for parent–child relationships than sole custody arrangements. The study adds to the existing literature by including both the mother–child relationship and the father–child relationship. Moreover, joint physical custody is not only compared to sole maternal custody, but also to sole paternal custody. Using a dyadic subsample of Belgian parents and children from the Divorce in Flanders data set ( N = 623), we compare two indicators of the parent–child relationship (parent–child communication and parenting) for children with married parents, with children in joint physical custody, sole maternal custody, and sole paternal custody. The results indicate that (1) the custodial arrangements after divorce affect parent–child relationships, in addition to the divorce, with regard to both open and problematic father–child communications and the support and control of children by mothers and fathers; and (2) joint physical custody, compared with sole custody (either by the mother or father), provides a better framework to shape a postdivorce parent–child relationship with both parents in terms of open communications and support.

Previous research on adolescents' well-being has focused mainly on the differences between married and divorced families. Recently, interest has shifted towards the cumulative effects of the various family transitions experienced by children. To contribute to this literature, we investigate the relationship of maternal and paternal family trajectories following divorce with adolescents' well-being by analyzing two dyadic subsamples of the ‘Divorce in Flanders’ study: mothers-adolescents (n = 515) and fathers-adolescents (n = 365). Results from the sequence analyses and structural equation models show that adolescents' well-being was lower if their mothers were in less stable partnership situations, namely if they had never repartnered, were in a LAT (living apart together) relationship or had had several relationships since their divorce. For fathers, the opposite result was found: adolescents' well-being was lower when their fathers were in seemingly stable partnership situations, i.e. if they had remarried or begun living with a new partner since their divorce.

BACKGROUNDThe increasing prevalence of higher-order unions is one of the major changes in family life in recent decades.OBJECTIVEBy using register data, we aim to give a unique view on how income components amount and composition - influence the likelihood of repartnering after divorce or separation in Belgium.METHODSWe analyse a sample of 46,648 broken marriages and 67,053 separated cohabitations from the Belgian Data Warehouse Labour Market and Social Protection database, using discrete-time event history models.RESULTSThe chances of men repartnering increase in higher income quintiles. Women in lower income quintiles are more likely to repartner, while women in higher income groups are less likely to repartner. These patterns have been found to hold regardless of the type of previous union. Furthermore, divorcees are more likely to repartner than former cohabiters are. The type of previous relationship hardly influences the impact of the amount of income on repartnering dynamics. As for the composition of income, being divorced decreases repartnering chances in cases of irregular labour, irrespective of gender. Women who are in work are more likely to repartner if they are divorced rather than separated, while men receiving unemployment benefits and integration income are more likely to repartner if they are divorced.CONCLUSIONSRepartnering is evolving to a two-tier system, with a wide discrepancy between lowest and highest income groups. Type of previous relationship makes hardly any difference to the impact of the amount of income on repartnering dynamics, but partially drives the impact of the composition of income.

Research consistently finds that divorced mothers with full-time residential children exhibit lower repartnering rates than mothers whose children also stay with their ex-partners. Yet the selectivity of mothers who take up sole physical custody could have biased the estimations. Using data from the Divorce-in-Flanders study (N=959), the authors model mothers' heterogeneity in the uptaking of sole physical custody as a factor influencing repartnering. They find that failure to account for the endogeneity of sole physical custody leads to a large underestimation of its effect on repartnering. Accounting for its endogeneity, sole physical custody reduced the mother's repartnering rate by 63%, whereas this was just 33% according to the naive estimate. The results suggest that mothers with full-time residential children are disproportionally selected among those who have better chances of repartnering but that sole physical custody itself acts as an important impediment to stepfamily formation following divorce.

The increased variability in family types and forms of relationships is the most apparent outcome of family change in recent decades in Europe. One relationship that has emerged and recently become more visible, both in society and in science, is a 'nonresidential partnership' termed living apart together (LAT). We explore the meaning and incidence of LAT partnerships across Europe using a life course perspective. Cluster analysis using five cluster variables (living independently from parents, never having lived as a couple before, the intention to cohabit in the future, the age of the respondents, and the duration of the relationship) was carried out on data from the Generations and Gender Survey for ten countries. Four types of non-residential partnership across Europe are revealed. From a measurement perspective, a simplified model provides empirical evidence that three indicators are sufficient to detect and situate LAT relationships on a partnership continuum: (1) having a nonresidential partner, (2) the age of the respondent, and (3) the duration of the LAT relationship. Classifying relationships with a non-resident partner can be carried out efficiently if information about the age of the respondent and the duration of the current LAT relationship is available.

OBJECTIVEThis paper studies postseparation fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate whether, and if so how, separation affects second birth spacing in Western European countries.METHODSThis analysis makes use of rich survey data from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as well as from Finnish register data. We thus cover the behavior of a large proportion of the population of Western Europe. We also use descriptive measures, such as Kaplan. Meier survival functions and cumulative incidence curves. In the multivariate analysis, we employ event history modeling to show how education relates to postseparation fertility behavior.RESULTSThere are large differences in postseparation fertility behavior across European countries. For Spain and Italy, we find that only a negligibly small proportion of the population have a second child after separating from the other parent of the firstborn child. The countries with the highest proportion of second children with a new partner are the United Kingdom, Germany, and Finland. In all countries, separation after first birth leads to a sharp increase in the birth interval between first and second births.CONTRIBUTIONOur study is a contribution to the demographic literature that aims at understanding birth spacing patterns in Western Europe. Furthermore, we draw attention to the role of postseparation policies in explaining country differences in fertility behavior in contemporary societies.

Inzicht in ouders en kinderen die geen contact meer hebben na scheiding blijft onderbelicht in het huidige familieonderzoek. Een erg specifieke vorm van een gebrek aan contact is ouderverstoting. Hoewel enkele studies dit thema al belicht hebben, blijft dit onderzoek schaars en kent het methodologisch beperkingen. Met deze studie willen we dan ook bijdragen aan onderzoek naar ouderverstoting en vertrekken we vanuit de grootschalige multi‐actorstudie ‘Scheiding in Vlaanderen – SiV’. Twee onderzoeksvragen worden beantwoord: (1) “Wat is de prevalentie van het vermoeden van ouderverstoting na scheiding in Vlaanderen?” en (2) “Hangt het vermoeden van ouderverstoting samen met een specifiek scheidingsproces?”.Daartoe analyseren we gegevens van zowel ouders (n = 1172) als kinderen (n = 499). Als eerste worden bivariate analyses uitgevoerd om de prevalentie van een vermoeden van ouderverstoting na te gaan bij zowel ouders als kinderen. Daarna wordt een multiple correspondentie‐analyse gebruikt om inzicht te verwerven in de eventuele samenhang van een vermoeden van ouderverstoting met het scheidingsproces. Hoewel een vermoeden van ouderverstoting niet vaak voorkomt, rapporteren zowel ouders als kinderen dat dit vaker voorkomt bij vaders dan bij moeders. Kinderen rapporteren wel hogere percentages dan ouders. Daarnaast blijkt ook dat een vermoeden van ouderverstoting vaker voorkomt bij een problematisch scheidingsproces. Abstract : Previous research on parent‐child relationships after divorce mainly concentrated on parents and children who still have contact. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the non‐contact between parents (mostly fathers) and children after divorce. A very specific form of non‐contact is parental alienation, on which research is very scarce and limited to small samples. So, with this study, we will investigate parental alienation after divorce for a large, multi‐actor sample from the “Divorce in Flanders”‐project. Two research questions will be answered: (1) “What is the prevalence of parental alienation towards mothers as well as towards fathers after divorce?” & (2) “How are characteristics of the divorce process related to parental alienation?”. We integrate two perspectives in this paper by analyzing a parent‐dataset (n = 1172) as well as a child‐dataset (n= 499). First, we establish the prevalence of parental alienation with bivariate analyses. Second, multiple correspondence analyses are used to gain insight in the association between the divorce process and parental alienation. Results indicate that parental alienation affects a small group of families and father alienation is more common than mother alienation. Moreover child reports are higher than parent reports. Regarding the association between parental alienation and the divorce process, it is found that parental alienation is more common amongst problematic divorce processes.

In de afgelopen twee decennia heeft het Centrum voor Longitudinaal en Levensloop onderzoek aan de universiteit van Antwerpen onderzoek gedaan naar families en familiedynamieken. Daarin stelden we vast dat ook in Vlaanderen het gezinsleven in snel tempo diversifieert. Met een babyboomgeneratie die de 65 passeert, treedt die diversiteit in het gezinsleven nu ook de top van de leeftijdspiramide binnen. In deze bijdrage focussen we specifiek op de 50-plussers. Hoe ziet het familieleven van de cohorten geboren voor 1960 er uit en hoe is dat in een halve eeuw geëvolueerd?

This paper contributes to our understanding of repartnering after divorce in two novel ways. First, we link patterns of educational assortative mating after divorce with partner choices in first marriages. Second, our study explicitly includes a marriage market measure that captures education specific mating opportunities after divorce. We apply competing risks event history models to a rich, new data source called “Divorce in Flanders/ Scheiding in Vlaanderen” (N = 2,001). Marriage market measures are derived from the first wave of the Belgian Generations and Gender Survey. Our results indicate that (a) educational homogamy is weaker in new matches made after divorce than in first marriages, (b) women in particular tend to choose partners being educationally similar to their first marriage partners, and (c) divorced men are more likely to re-partner with highly educated women as a result of the increased supply of such singles in the marriage market.