Peer-reviewed article
Parental repartnering and child well-being: What role does coresidence play?
Jana Kuhlemann, Sandra Krapf ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how children aged 7 to 16 in Germany respond when their single parents enter new romantic relationships, whether those partnerships involve living together or living apart. Using data from a longitudinal family panel, researchers found that children's emotional symptoms worsened when parents entered either type of partnership, but behavioral problems only increased when parents moved in with a new partner. The findings suggest that even non-cohabiting parental partnerships affect children's emotional well-being.
Key points
- Both living-apart-together (LAT) and coresidential parental repartnering were associated with increased emotional symptoms in children
- Conduct problems in children increased only in response to coresidential repartnering, not LAT partnerships
- The study included children aged 7 to 16 years old from Germany
- The research used individual fixed effects regression analysis to track changes within the same children over time
- Nonresidential partnerships deserve consideration in research on post-separation family development
Limitations
The study focuses only on Germany and may not generalize to other cultural or institutional contexts. The document does not report effect sizes or discuss potential confounding factors, mediating mechanisms, or longer-term developmental outcomes.
Abstract
Objective: The paper examines the effects of parental repartnering (including residential and nonresidential partnerships) on children’s well-being. Background: An increasing number of children experience the repartnering of their parents. While previous research has focused on coresidential repartnering, this paper also considers the transition to a steady nonresidential (living apart together – LAT) partnership of formerly single parents. Specifically, the paper examines whether these transitions differ in their effect on children. Method: This study uses data from the German Family Panel (pairfam) to analyze the effects of parental repartnering on children’s emotional and behavioral well-being. The children in the sample were seven to 16 years old. Individual fixed effects regressions were estimated for two types of parental partnership transitions: the formation of a LAT partnership and the formation of a coresidential partnership. Results: The results show that children's emotional symptoms increased in response to both parental LAT repartnering and coresidential repartnering, whereas children’s conduct problems increased only in response to parental coresidential repartnering. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the formation of a nonresidential partnership by a parent can affect children's emotional well-being, and thus should be considered when analyzing post-separation family development.
Findings the Hub has extracted
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Problem
Children's emotional and behavioral well-being following parental separation and repartnering
- Intervention
- Parental repartnering in two forms: living-apart-together (LAT) partnerships and coresidential partnerships
- Population
- Children aged 7 to 16 years from Germany (German Family Panel sample)
Key finding
Children's emotional symptoms increased following both LAT repartnering and coresidential repartnering