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Spatial Mobility, Migration, and Living Arrangements pp 205–224Cite as

Post-Separation Families: Spatial Mobilities and the Need to Manage Multi-Local Everyday Life

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Abstract

The number of post-separation families has been increasing in Europe since the 1960s although there are considerable differences in the divorce and separation rates across European countries. In most cases, families do not break up after separation or divorce; they rather go through processes of spatio-temporal, emotional, and social reorganisation. Furthermore, ‘residential mobility’, ‘visiting mobility’, and ‘escorting mobility’ constitute three different forms of spatial mobility, which play a central role in post-separation family life. However, little research has been done and few statistics are available concerning this issue as well as the impact of these different forms of spatial mobilities on family members and their daily lives. This paper aims to address these deficiencies by introducing an approach to multi-local and family practices to investigate the role of spatial mobilities in post-separation family life for both children and their separated parents. Using empirical research findings on post-separation multi-local families in Germany, the study focuses on the requirements which arise for children and their parents with residential moves and on the strategies the families employ to cope with the resultant multi-local living conditions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Because terms are used differently in diverse research fields, it deems important to explain my terminological use. In the following, I will use the terms ‘relocation’, ‘residential mobility’ and ‘moves’ synonymously for the acts of separated parents changing their usual residence including short or long distance migrations. Thus my use of the term ‘relocation’ will not be reserved for those situations where a parent’s request to move with a child becomes part of a contested legal case, as it is widely done in legal-oriented research literature. Furthermore, my terminological use also differs from distinctions between ‘residential mobility’, ‘internal’ and ‘international migration’ used mainly in migration research (Newbold 2010). The distinctive criteria used in these definitions such as distance, the impact of legal aspects on migration as well as the change or otherwise of activity space as a result of a residential move point out important aspects for the problems discussed in this article. But conventional terms are not really suitable for the issue of interest here, that is the consequences of parental residential moves and the resulting residential distances of family members to each other for the ‘doing family’ and the everyday life in post-separation living situations (i.e. the alternating of children between their parents homes). To address this issue, a terminology which refers to the distances established through the move of a separated parent relative to the residence of an ex-partner is needed. Thus, I will use the terms ‘short distance’ or ‘local-scale’ to label intra-urban moves that enable maintaining the previous activity space for relocators. Such a distance between the parents’ households is easy to handle by walking, bicycling, or using public transport. Older children may visit the parent in a self-determined manner without accompaniment or involvement (i.e. financial) of the other parent. I will use ‘middle distance’ when referring to moves involving changing activity space for relocating parent and children, but the residence of the ex-partner remains at a distance that is relatively easy to reach (up to about one hour travel time) as well as ‘long distance’ to characterize interregional or international relocations involving changing activity space, and probably cultural environment for the relocating parent as well as children and distances between the residences of parents which entail more than one hour travel time and the necessity of using transport such as a car, train or plane.

  2. 2.

    Shared residence refers to the situation where children reside in equal amounts of time with each parent after divorce or separation.

  3. 3.

    Although the terms ‘external parent’ and ‘non-residential parent’ are not well suited for the study of post-separation families from a multi-local perspective, both terms are used synonymously in this article to describe the parent with whom the child lives less often.

  4. 4.

    The Research Group is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and hosted by the German Youth Institute (DJI) in Munich. For more details see www.dji.de/multilokale_familie

  5. 5.

    Data analysis of the ethnographic study is largely the result of the teamwork of Anna Monz, Diane Nimmo, Nina Bathmann, and Michaela Schier.

  6. 6.

    We suppose that this is a sampling bias resulting from the wording “separated parents and their children living here and there” in our recruitment announcement. Although we tried to recruit separated parents with low education or income, we had little access to this group.

  7. 7.

    Data analysis of the AID:A survey (2009) was done by Sandra Hubert, researcher at the German Youth Institute in Munich, Germany.

  8. 8.

    As a rule, separated parents agree with each other on when, how, and where the change of the children from one parental home to the other occurs.

  9. 9.

    The determination of the child’s post-separation residential arrangement is generally not a legal issue in Germany. The right and obligation to determine the child’s place of abode (“Aufenthaltsbestimmungsrecht”) is regarded as part of the parental responsibility for the child (§ 1631 para. 1 German CC). Mothers and fathers can choose various arrangements to care for their children after a separation, although the law, as well as most divorce professionals, take the so-called primary residence model as the default option (Dethloff and Martiny 2005).

  10. 10.

    Because of her job, the mother in this family had been a long-distance weekly commuter for many years before the break-up.

  11. 11.

    This is a post-separation living arrangement where the parents go back and forth from a residence in which the child/children reside.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schumpeter Research Group “Multi-local Families”, German Youth Institute/Deutsches Jugendinstitut e.V., Munich, Germany

    Michaela Schier

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  1. Michaela Schier
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Correspondence to Michaela Schier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Bremen, Germany

    Can M. Aybek

  2. Universität Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Johannes Huinink

  3. Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW and WU), Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Raya Muttarak

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Schier, M. (2015). Post-Separation Families: Spatial Mobilities and the Need to Manage Multi-Local Everyday Life. In: Aybek, C., Huinink, J., Muttarak, R. (eds) Spatial Mobility, Migration, and Living Arrangements. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10021-0_10

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