Peer-reviewed article
Attitudes toward child well-being in diverse families across Europe
Anne Solaz, Anne-Right Poortman, Dimitri Mortelmans, Laura Bernardi, Anja Steinbach ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looks at what people in Europe think about how children fare in different family types, not at children's own outcomes. It uses a 2022 online panel survey (European Social Survey CRONOS-2) covering 11 countries. Respondents compared child well-being in six family types (single mother, single father, stepmother, stepfather, gay male parents, lesbian parents) with traditional families. Overall, non-traditional families were seen as less favourable for children's well-being than traditional ones. The abstract is cut off, so the rest of the results are not available.
Key points
- Data come from the 'Attitudes toward family diversity' module of the European Social Survey CRONOS-2 online panel (2022) across 11 countries.
- Six family types were compared with traditional families: single mother, single father, stepmother, stepfather, gay male parents and lesbian parents.
- Results were explored by country, gender, age, education and income quintile.
- Generally, non-traditional families were perceived as less favourable to children's well-being than traditional ones.
- Over two-thirds of respondents view child well-being in stepfamilies and same-sex families as comparable to that in traditional families, but the sentence is cut off in the text provided.
Limitations
The abstract is truncated, so the full results, the country and sociodemographic differences, and the list of all 11 countries are not available. The study measures public attitudes, not actual outcomes for children, and it does not evaluate an intervention.
Abstract
BACKGROUNDEuropean families have diversified, with more children raised in single-parent, stepparent, and same-sex parent families.Whereas child outcomes in these families are wellstudied, societal attitudes toward family diversity remain underexplored. OBJECTIVEThis study examines (1) perceptions of child well-being in nontraditional families compared to traditional ones, (2) their variation by family types in terms of structure and composition, and (3) sociodemographic and international differences in these attitudes across Europe. METHODSWe used the "Attitudes toward family diversity" module from the European Social Survey CRONOS-2 online panel study (2022) across 11 countries.We analysed responses on perceptions of child well-being in six family types relatively to traditional families: single mother, single father, stepmother, stepfather, gay male parents, and lesbian parents.Distributions were explored by country, gender, age, education, and income quintiles. RESULTSGenerally, nontraditional families were perceived as less favourable to children's wellbeing than traditional ones.However, whereas over two-thirds view child well-being growing up in stepfamilies and same-sex families as comparable to child well-being in