Overview

Abstract (English)

This report was commissioned by the Child Support Team of the Department of Justice Canada as part of a project using data from the “Family History and Custody” section of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to explore the impact of parents’ family transitions on children’s family environment and economic well-being. This is the first of two reports exploring the way in which parents’ conjugal behaviour shapes the family life course of their children. In this report, we focus on the beginning of the child’s life course, situating the birth within the family life course of the parents, and looking at the first and most common transition experienced by children: their parents’ separation. The report is divided into four sections. The first two set the scene, updating and expanding earlier analyses of changes in the context at birth for children born during the last two decades of the 20 th century, comparing the different regions of Canada, and exploring how this evolution influences the likelihood that parents separate. The other two sections focus on the way separated parents share responsibility for their children’s physical and economic support, with particular reference to shared “physical” custody, 1 and to the new information on custody and child support collected for the first time at Cycle 3.

Abstract (French)

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