Family Relationships

   <Family structure and family relationship from the child well-being perspective>

Xap Tv Article:-Children Family structure & Family Living arrangements

                                          ABSTRACT
Relationships within the family are important for the development of children's well-being, as well as for their evaluations of their family and their overall life satisfaction. Nevertheless, little is known about differences in family relationships, family subjective well-being (SWB) and overall SWB of children from different groups, especially those who are living in diverse family structures. The purpose of this study is to explore differences in family relationships, family SWB and overall SWB between children living in three different living arrangements – a two-parent family, a single-parent family and a separated family. The study used data from the second wave of data collection of the Children's Worlds project, a large international study of children's well-being. 20,343 children aged 10–12 from 10 countries constitute the final sample of the current sample. Several agreement, satisfaction and time use questions were applied to measure the children's family relationships and family SWB. Two psychometric scales were used to explore the children's overall SWB. In addition, differences in socio-economic characteristics were also explored. Children living with both parents were found to evaluate their family relationships and family SWB higher than children living in a single parent family and in separated families. Similar results were also found in respect to overall SWB. Not many differences were found between the last two groups, namely these children are quite similar in their perceptions and evaluations of their families and their overall SWB. However, children living in separated families tend to be less satisfied with the people they live with and their family life. This trend was found in all participant countries, although it was less prevalent in Israel and Algeria. The discussion offers several possible explanations to the findings, and emphasizes that the source of the differences may be complex and may include macro and micro explanations.

1. Introduction
Relationships within the family are important for the development of children's well-being, as well as for their overall satisfaction, it seems that there is barely another “institution” so crucially dependent on the social, historical, cultural and religiously conditioned notions. On the other hand, the elementary care for the exceedingly dependent family members is central nearly everywhere. While both the importance of differences between the children's comprehension of care and the similarity of their care related expectations seems be important, little is known about the family relationships and family well-being from the perspective of the children themselves, and whether the children who live in different family structures differ in their evaluations of family relationships and family well-being.

1.1. What is a family?
The Preamble of the Convention on the Rights of the Child considered the family as the “natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children” and declared that “the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding” . Family structure has undergone considerable changes over the last century; the notion of ‘family’ has become more and more fluid and there is no such thing as a standard family. In the Western world the number of household members has fallen dramatically; there has been a substantial decline in fertility, often below the replacement level; a decline in marriage; new forms of partnerships, such as unmarried co- habitation and living-apart-together; an increase in the divorce rate and separations as well as single parent households, and the extended family no longer live under the same roof as the nuclear family (Mortelmans,Matthijs,Alofs,&Segaert,2016). These changes have gathered pace due to socioeconomic, technological and cultural factors. Authors like Cliquet have singled out three major groups of family characteristics: those pertaining to relational behaviour (partnership), to reproductive behaviour (parent-hood) and to inter-generational behaviour (focused on the living conditions of elderly people). Another important change for families and the family structure in the welfare states is the increased participation of women in the labour market. In many countries, like Germany, women mainly work part-time for child and family related reasons, the concept of the second demographic transition (SDT) sees that populations will also be much older as a result of the lower fertility and additional gains in longevity. Other European countries and industrialized Asian countries are already fol- lowing this trend. This demographic transition brings new social challenges associated with further aging, integration of immigrants and other cultures, lesser stability of households, and higher levels of poverty or exclusion among certain household types, like single people's or lone mothers'. On the other hand, trends in family structure in the developing countries are slightly different. Extended families, which include parent (s) and other family members from outside the nuclear family, are common in Asia, the Middle East, Central/South America, and sub- Saharan Africa. Marriage rates are declining in many regions. Adults are most likely to be married in Asia and the Middle East, and are least likely to be married in Central/South America. These are just few examples highlighting that the notion of family and household structure varies markedly among countries. As the concept of family is becoming more fluid and changeable the challenges in defining different family structures is also raised. In the current research, a well-established approach was used, in which the definition of the family structure is based on living arrangements rather than on the parents' marital status . Based on this approach, and similar to previous research (e.g. Bjarnason et al., 2012), two-parent family is family in which two parents share the same household, a single-parent family, is in which only one parent is living in and a separated family is a family in is which the living arrangement of the child (and consequently other aspect of the care) is shared between two homes (and adults). However, as mentioned above, the reality can be very diverse. For example, some children living in separated family may share their time equally between the two homes, while others may visit the other house less frequency.

1.2. Children's point of view
Although there are relevant studies on changing families and demographic trends, we know little about how children experience these situations, and how this affects their well-being. Taking the children's point of view into consideration is embedded in a wider perspective that stress the importance of evaluating and using children's Subjective Well-Being (SWB) for research and policy decisions. This is a perspective more focused on the positive aspects of childhood (and not only on the negative aspects of children's lives) and on their current situation (not so much on what they will become as adults) has called for redirecting the focus to certain dimensions of children's well-being and quality of life, such as satisfaction with different aspects of their lives. In recent years, children's
SWB has received an increasing amount of attention, and one of the ways to investigate it has been to ask children directly, allowing them to evaluate their own perceptions of well-being; in other words, their perceptions of happiness, their satisfaction with life and their own psychological well-being, and positive effect and negative effect. Casas (2011) contemplates SWB as the set of perceptions, evaluations and aspirations of children about their own lives, and therefore linked to non-material aspects of life, such as happiness (affective component) or satisfaction (cognitive component). This also entails thinking of how to improve or maintain good levels of well-being and universal policies that promote the SWB. In this respect, the family is one of the most important facilitating factors for children's well-being. A data analysis of young people in the United Kingdom revealed a significant link between the quality of parent-child relationships and young people's well-being. Thus, according to children participating in a qualitative study well-being is related to both effects and attitudes, relations with family and friends being key factors in it. Children scoring lower in the SWB tend to refer more to relationships with friends and basic needs covered, whereas those scoring higher tend to refer more to family relationships and not having problems. In another qualitative study it is shown how poor adolescents who have a relationship of trust and support with at least one of their parents are more able to handle problems. Considering the children's perspective is not only important in order to gain an understanding, but also to realize that children do not always think what adults assume they think. Madge and Willmott have shown how children are capable of observing and commenting on their lives, on the feelings they have towards their parents or carers and the impact they have on their upbringing. Children tend to respect the figure of parental authority, but adopt strategies at the same time to negotiate decision-making. Furthermore, children want to be consulted, even though the final decision is not theirs. They like having good relationships, love and support within the family, and they dislike family conflicts, being more able to cope with separation and other stresses if they feel cared for. This is especially the case when children live a socioeconomically deprived situation together with their family. Nevertheless, a great care must be taken when comparing the SWB of children from different countries. We identified certain limitations to be taken into account in the study of child well-being from an inter-cultural perspective such as, for example, the fact that child-rearing styles differ worldwide and the results of the majority of cultural practices provide insufficient empirical evidence as far as child well-being is concerned. In addition, we should bear in mind that many of the approaches and measures to gauge child well-being are rooted in Western cultures.

1.3. Children's SWB and living arrangements
Not much is known about the differences in SWB in various living arrangements, especially when cross-cultural differences in SWB are explored. Xap Tv...explored differences in the SWB of Spanish children aged 12 living in diverse households - living in care, in single parent families and in two-parent families, and they pointed out that children living with two parents reported a better SWB in all life domains than those in the other two groups. Differences between children living with one parent and children living in care were mostly found in relation to interpersonal relationships and health. However, one of the factors which were influencing this output was that children living in care and living with one parent have the least stable lives comparing to those living with both parents who have much more stable lives. As a conclusion, the value of stability to children's lives was highlighted. These findings were also confirmed by Xap Tv on negative effect of critical changes on adolescents' SWB in seven out of eight countries participating in the study. Bjernason and colleagues examined the life satisfaction of children aged 11–15 among children in different family structures from 36 Western, industrialized countries. They found that life satisfaction is lower among children in all types of other living arrangements com- pared to those living with both biological parents. When perceived economic status of the family and problems communicating with parents has been controlled the highest level of life satisfaction was found in two-biological parents households, followed by single-mother households. Other findings may help us in predicting how different living arrangements may influence children's SWB. An important perspective on a macro level focuses on structural conditions in national contexts, often related to the welfare system and the impact on di ff erent family types. The socioeconomic situation of different family types, the number of family members, the social support, for example, for a nuclear family as compared to a single parent family, may have a strong impact on children. Xap Tv and our team articulates that the family structure plays an important role in a child's material well-being. Although the poverty rate varies greatly among countries, it tends to be higher in single-mother families than in two-parent families. As a result, children in single-mother families have more limited financial resources and are at a greater risk of poverty. This is happening, for example, in Germany where structural conditions within the tax system, the social insurance system and, last but not least, the health insurance system increases the disadvantages of single parent families. Another possible impact, located on a meso-level, focuses on inter-connections between families and “institutions” like schools or the social support system at a community level, highlighting families with multiple needs for support or weaker connections with these “institutions”. This is often the case when families are poor, family members are traumatized, parents are single or lowly educated. On a micro level, the concept of “doing family” may shed light. This means that the family is created by social practices and interactions. Children are also involved like adults and the family group defines the character of the family. Therefore material resources, social support and time are important to realize a family life. In addition the family breakdown may have negative effect on children's well-being. We point out that, in the case of parental separation, children claim that parental communication with them is generally very poor, and they are rarely given a full explanation and a chance to ask questions. The majority report having felt confused and distressed by the situation. The authors also report that children whose parents had undergone more relationship transitions described their relationship to their parents in a less positive way than those whose parents had not. Children, who described high levels of conflict and animosity in their relationships with their mothers and fathers, and a greater involvement in the parental conflict, had higher levels of adjustment problems. Furthermore, positive feelings were associated with being given an active role in decisions about how much time was spent in the two households. To conclude, the purpose of the present study is to examine differences between children living in three family structures –‘Two-parent family’, ‘Single-parent family’ and ‘Separated family’–in their family relationships and family SWB. Furthermore, differences between the three groups of children will be also explored in overall SWB. The possible differences between the groups in socio-economic character- istics will also be assessed. The diversity of the participating countries will also allow us to explore differences or shared trends across countries and cultures.

2.1. Sample characteristics
The international Children's Worlds Study (ISCWeB) is a world-wide research survey on children's SWB. The current research is based on data from the second wave of data collection that was conducted during winter of 2013 and spring of 2014 with representative samples of children aged 8 to 12 in a diverse range of 15 countries around the globe. Items on family structure, which were essential to the analysis of the current paper, were included in the questionnaires of 10 countries, and these were included in the paper: Algeria, Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Israel, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the UK. In each country a representative sample of children in mainstream schools in the whole country or in a specific region was obtained. The sampling strategy varied from country to country subject to the characteristics. The paper's initial sample consists of 21,210 children aged 10–12 from 10 countries. We were unable to classify the family structure of 867 (4.09%) children due to missing data and therefore they were not included in the current research. The
final sample comprised 20,343 children, with a mean age of 11.16 (SD = 1.16) and 49.7% were boys.
2.2. Group classification
Two questions were used to distinguish between the family structures of the children. Firstly, they were asked where they lived. Most of the children (19,887, 97.7%) were living with their family. 456 (2.2%) children who answered they were living in foster care, residential care or other type of home were omitted from the sample. Secondly, those children who answered that they lived with their families were asked who they lived with. 15,751 (79.2%) children who answered they were living with both their parents were categorized as living in ‘Two-parent families’, 2591 children (13.0%) who answered they were living with one parent were classified as living in ‘Single parent families’, and an- other 1266 (6.4%) who answered they were living with one parent in one house and another parent in another house were classified as living in ‘Separated families’. A small number of the children (279, 1.4%) answered they were living with their families but without any of the parents; due to this fact the group was omitted from the final sample.

2.3. Instruments
In our study we used ten questions to evaluate the children's family relationships and family SWB:
- four agreement questions (I feel safe at home; We have a good time together; My parents listen to me; My parents treat me fairly), - three satisfaction questions (How satisfied are you with: The people you live with; All the other people in your family; Your family life?), - and three time use questions (How often in the past week have you spent time with your family: Talking together; Having fun together; Learning together?).
The answers to agreement questions were given on a five-point scale from “I don't agree” to “Totally agree”. The responses to satisfaction questions were given on an 11-point scale from 0 to 10, with 0 labelled as “Not at all satisfied” and 10 labelled as “Totally satisfied”, whereas the responses to questions about time use were given on a four-point frequency scale from “Not at all” to “Every day”. Due to low internal consistency between the items, who share similar response scale, in several of the countries, combined indexes were not computed, and the results were explored for each of the items separately.

In addition two psychometric scales were used to explore the children overall SWB: a modified version of the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (SLSS-5) and an adapted Personal Well-being Index School Children-(PWISC). 

3. Findings
Table 2 presents the percentage of the three family structures by country. Algeria, Turkey and Israel have the highest percentage of families with two parents, which can be common for conservative countries. Not surprisingly, separated families in are prevalent in Western countries, with the highest number in Norway and Germany. Nevertheless, the picture regarding single-parent families is more complex – the percentage of single-parent families is also higher in Western countries as well as in Colombia and Ethiopia. Xap Tv made a sample of Ethiopia and Algeria which  includes only a small number of separated families, therefore henceforth this group will not be calculated for these countries, however it will be included in the pooled sample analysis.

3.1. Family structure and socio-economic characteristics
Three socio-economic characteristics were tested: gender, whether the child was born in the country and worry about family money. Only in two countries – Colombia and Estonia – significant differences between groups were found in relation to gender. In Estonia girls are more prevalent in single (56.6%) and separated (57.8) families than in two- parent families (46.9%). Similarly, In Colombia there was a higher percentage of girls in single parent families (57.4%), while the percentages in separated families (48.2%) and two-parent families (48.6%). Children were asked whether they were born in their country of residence.

3.2. Family structure and family relationships
As was mentioned earlier, three types of questions were used to evaluate the children's family relationships – agreement, satisfaction and frequency of activities. The first agreement item asked the children to evaluate the state- ment ‘I have good time together with my family’. Children who live with both parents agree more often as compared to the other two groups in seven of the countries. In addition, in Turkey this difference was also found but only between this group and the children living in separated families. Differences were not found between those living in single-parent and separated families ex- cept for Estonia where the children from separated families scored the least. The second statement referred to feeling safe at home. In general, children who live in two-parent families feel safer at home; in seven countries differences were found between this group and the two other groups, however the differences in the other two groups vary between countries. In five countries – Estonia, Germany, Norway, Spain and in the UK – differences were found between children who live in two-parent families and children living in separated families, in four countries – Colombia, Ethiopia, Spain and the UK – these differences were found between the first group and children living in single-parent families. Only in Germany differences were also found between children living in single-parent families and children living in separated families where the latter scored the least. In six countries differences were found between different types of family structures as regards the statement ‘my parents listen to me’. While children living in two-parent families agree the most that their parents listen to them, there is a variation between countries in the nature of this difference; in Estonia, Spain and the UK children living in two-parent families agree more often than those living in single-parent families and separated families; in Colombia differences were found only between those living in single-parent families and in Germany and Norway - only in separated families. In addition, only in Spain and Norway differences were found between the two other groups. Lastly, differences between the groups were found in seven coun- tries – Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Norway, Spain and the UK – also regarding the statement ‘my parents treat me fairly.’ Here it seems that children living in separated families agree less; in five countries – Estonia, Germany, Norway, Spain and the UK – these dif- ferences were found between children living in two-parent families and children living in separated families; in two countries differences were also found between the latter and children living in single-parent families. Between the two other groups, differences were found in three countries out of ten – Colombia, Ethiopia and Spain. The children were asked how satisfied they were with the people they lived with. As can be seen in Table 5, in all of the countries except Algeria differences were found between the three groups. In five countries – Colombia, Ethiopia, Germany, Spain and the UK – children living with both parents were more satisfied then those living in single parent families and those living in separated families. In Estonia, Israel, Norway and Turkey this difference was found only with those living in separated families. In addition, in five countries – Estonia, Germany, Norway, Turkey and the UK – children living in separated families were less satisfied with the people they lived with than those living in single parent families. The trend found as regards satisfaction with the children's family life is quite the same but stronger. In all countries differences were found between groups. In seven countries – Algeria, Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Spain and the UK – children who are living in two- parent families are the most satisfied compared to children living in other families. In another three countries – Israel, Norway and Turkey – these differences were found only as compared to children living in separated families. In addition, in four countries out of ten – Estonia, Germany, Norway and Turkey – children living in separated families were also less satisfied with their family life compared to those living in single-parent families. In all of the countries, except Algeria and Israel, differences were found in satisfaction with all the other people in the child's family. Unlike the differences described above, here children living in single- parent families were less satisfied in some countries; in Colombia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, Norway, Spain and the UK children living in single-parent families are less satisfied with all the other people in their family compared to children living in two-parent families. In Germany, Norway, Spain, Turkey and the UK these differences were found between the latter and children living in separated families. Differences between children living in single-parent families and children living in separated families were not found in any of the countries. The last set of items concerning family relationship was about fre- quency of activities with the family in the last week (Table 6). The
first item referred to the frequency of talking together with the family. In five countries differences were found between groups, however quite differently from the trend found in the previous items, here children living in single-parent families were reporting lesser amount of talking together with their family and some variations were found between countries. In Colombia, Germany, Spain and the UK children living in single-parent families reported a lower frequency of talking with their family as compared to children living in two-parent families. Only in Spain differences were also found between children living in single-parent families and separated families. In Germany, Norway, Turkey and the UK children living in separated families were less engaged in talking together with the family than those living with both parents. In Spain, on the other hand, those living in separated families reported a higher frequency of talking together with the family. The results regarding having fun together were a bit more obvious. Differences were found in six countries; in all of them children living in two-parent families had the highest frequency of having fun together with the family. In Estonia, Germany, Spain and the UK differences were found between this group and the other two groups. In Algeria and Colombia differences were found only with children living in single- parent families. No differences were found between children living in single-parent families and children living in separated families. Differences between the groups were found in all countries except Algeria and Estonia in the last activities of learning together with family. Similar to having fun together, children living in two-parent fa- milies had the highest frequency with the exception of Ethiopia where children living in single-parent families reported a higher frequency of learning together with the family than those living in two-parent fa- milies. In three countries – Germany, Spain and the UK – children living in two-parent families had the highest frequency compared to both children living in separated families and those living in single-parent families. In Israel, Norway and Turkey differences were found only between children living in two-parent families and children living in separated families and in Colombia these differences were found only with children living in single-parent families. Only in Turkey di ff er- ences were also found between children living in single-parent families and children living in separated families, the latter had the lowest frequency of learning together with family.
3.3. Family structure and overall SWB
Two scales were used to assess the children's overall SWB: a modified version of SLSS as a domain-free scale and the PWI-SC as domain- specific scale. Starting with SLSS, differences between the three groups of children were found in all countries except for Algeria and Israel. In most of the countries – Estonia, Germany, Norway, Spain and the UK – children living in two-parent families had a higher score than those living in single-parent families and children living in separated families. In addition, in Colombia and Ethiopia similar differences were found, but only with those living in single-parent families. Only in Turkey differences were not found between these two groups - in this country children living in separated families had the lowest score compared to the other two groups. Similar, yet somewhat distinctive, results were found as regards PWI-SC. In most countries, except Algeria, Israel and Colombia, differences were found between the three groups of children. Here too in Estonia, Germany, Spain and the UK children living in two-parent families had a higher score than children in the other two groups. In Ethiopia differences were found only with children living in single- parent family (differences with separated families were not tested). In Norway and Turkey only children living in separated families had a lower score than children living in two-parent families. No differences were found between children living in single-parent families and those living in separated families.

4. Discussion
We found that children living with both parents are happier with their family relationships. This trend was found in all participant countries, although it was less prevalent in Israel and Algeria, despite a wide range of countries (and cultures) participating in the study and a diversity in the distribution of the three family structures in these countries. For example, children living in two-parent families tend to agree more that they feel safe at home and have good time together with their families. This trend is even stronger when satisfaction questions were used; in all 10 countries children from two-parent families are more satisfied with their family life and in nine countries in which they are more satisfied with the people they live with. In most countries children living with two parents also reported more joint family activities than children from the other two groups. Interestingly, it seems that in most of the countries children living in single parent families and those living in separated families are more similar than different, as not many differences were found between the two groups in family relationships. Nevertheless, there are some dif- ferences between children living in single parent families and separated families, interestingly, the latter are less satisfied; children living in
separated families tend to be less satisfied with the people they live with and their family life. When we looked upon the overall SWB, the picture was rather si- milar; the overall SWB of children living with both parents is higher than in the other two groups, and there is no difference between children living in single parent families and separated families. Lastly, somewhat fewer differences between the groups were found concerning socio-demographic characteristics, however the differences found may help in understanding the differences located in family relationship and overall SWB. In most of the countries children living with both parents were less worried about the family money. Remarkably, no differences were found between children living in single-parent families and those living in separated families in any of the countries. In two countries – Colombia and Estonia – girls are more prevalent in single parent families. A higher prevalence of immigrant children was found in single parent families in Spain and Norway. Why do children from separated and single parent families have the lower family and overall SWB? First, this may be related to the structural conditions of ‘other’ family types that were detailed in the inter- diction; as long as a society supports a specific type of family – i.e. two- adults nuclear family – and ignore major changes in family structures, the situation of different family types will be fragile due to the socio-economic background, insecurity and participation (e.g. in the labour market). In addition, despite changes in the family structure, in many countries there is still a cultural and social preference of families with two parents, thus children who live in other family types may feel different, or are subject to being bullied by their peers due to their different family structure. All of these may a ff ect their SWB. An interesting finding is the lower SWB of children from separated and single families is shared across a variety of countries with different welfare systems. The impact of the welfare systems on children's SWB is beyond the scope of this paper, however Bradshaw (2015) highlight the complicity of such link. On the other hand, these findings may illuminate that the structural conditions, described above, are still dominated re- gardless of recent changes in family notion in Western countries.

The exploration of this subject is just emerging and more research is needed. Second, socio-economic status (SES) may help explain these results. The contribution of SES to children's SWB appears to be complex. On a macro level, the impact of SES seems to be small and cross-country differences in economic status do not seem to influence differences in SWB (Joo Lee & Sang Yoo, 2015), however perceived economic depri- vation was found associated with lower SWB among children. It may be that what mater is the relative perception of the child of his/her family's economic deprivation com- pared to other children, than the family's SES, as measured by objective indicators. In addition, XapTv team suggests that family can also act as a mediator force between the economic status of a household and the perceived material status of a child. Thus, two-parent families may have more capacities to ease the negative effect of poverty than single-parent or separated families with the same SES. Third,..we found that children living with one parent have the less stable lives, while children living with two parents lead much more stable lives. In that study, stability appears as a key factor in the SWB of children. Children of separated families, and to some extent of single-parent families, may experience more changes in their lives. As a separation of the parents may lead not only to the change in their family and who they live with, but also to possible changes in their living arrangements, accommodations and, as a result, a change of their school and friends. All of these are very significant factors in children's lives. Furthermore, when discussing differences between two-parent families and other types of families, the concept of ‘quality of relation- ship’ should be highlighted. From the literature it is well known that this has an impact on children's well-being. Being treated fairly by parents (or other adults), having a good time together, having a place to learn, parents (or other adults) listening to the child, parents interested in children's opinions and safety are the relevant items to describe the concept of family relations. This understanding has a normative basis on “good parenting” (middle class based) and maybe it does not fit to other cultural attitudes between countries and within countries. The quality of relationship could also be measured by the time the family members spend together. We defined this with three items: having fun together, talking together and learning together. This as well tends to be a normative concept of a “good” (middle class) family life . Another key aspect of the current findings is the differences between children from separated families and single parent families. As men- tioned above, almost no differences were found between the two groups, that is to say that despite the differences between countries and cultures, it seems that in general children from single-parent families and children from separated families are more similar than different. This may reflect similar life circumstances, mentioned above –perceived deprivation, less stability in the child life, being different than the majority of the children or the cultural consensus and the stress impose on the family relationship between the two groups... they contribute to the similarities found. Nevertheless, children living in separated families tend to be less satisfied with the people they live with and their family life. This may be due to the change in family relationships and everyday life due to the breakdown . For example, children of separated parents cannot see and spend time with their parents at the same time as they used to before the separation. Additionally, there may be children from separated families who are the subject of conflict between their parents or who blame themselves for the family breakdown. Some researchers propose that parents' divorce has an even worse impact on a child than his/her parent's death ). This is mainly the case of family quarrels in most civilized countries.


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