Maternal satisfaction with joint and sole child physical placement arrangements following separation in Wisconsin and Finland.

Families (and sometimes courts) make important decisions regarding child physical custody arrangements post-separation, and shared parenting arrangements are increasingly common in most developed countries. Shared arrangements may be differentially associated with parental satisfaction, and these associations may vary across countries. Using data from surveys of separated mothers in Wisconsin and Finland, the present study explores this possibility and is guided by three aims: (a) to identify child and family characteristics associated with sole and shared child placements 6 or more years after separation; (b) to estimate associations of children's post-separation placements with maternal satisfaction with placements and expense sharing; (c) to examine whether the relationship between post-separation placement and maternal satisfaction varies by mothers' earnings and the quality of parents' relationships. We find that Finnish mothers with shared placement are more satisfied with their placement than are their counterparts with sole placement, while we find the inverse is true for Wisconsin mothers. Moreover, parental satisfaction with shared placement, overall and relative to sole placement, varies greatly depending on the quality of a mother's relationship with the other parent; and differences in relationship quality in Wisconsin and Finland may help explain the difference in satisfaction with shared placement in the two locations. In both Finland and Wisconsin, we find mothers with shared placement are more satisfied with the way expenses are shared between parents than are mothers with sole placement. Associations between placement and satisfaction are robust to extensive controls for child and maternal characteristics.

Unequal but balanced: Highly educated mothers' perceptions of work-life balance during the COVID-19 lockdown in Finland and the Netherlands.

One year after the European work-life balance directive, which recognises the need for work-family policy support, measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic began shaping parents' work-life balance in significant ways. Academically, we are challenged to explore whether existing theoretical frameworks hold in this new environment with combined old and new policy frameworks. We are also challenged to understand the nuanced ways in which the first lockdown affects the combination of paid work and care. We address both of these issues, providing a cross-sectional comparative analysis of highly educated mothers' perceptions of work-life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland and the Netherlands. Our findings show that highly educated Finnish mothers have more difficulty combining work and care during the first lockdown than Dutch mothers. The absence of state-provided care during the lockdown creates greater difficulty for full-time working Finnish mothers in a dual-earner/state-carer system than an absence of such care in the Dutch one-and-a-half earner system, where most mothers work part time. Further analyses suggest variation in part-time and (nearly) full-time hours mitigates the work-life balance experiences of highly educated Dutch mothers. Additional factors explaining cross-country variation or similarities include the presence of young children and the presence of a partner. We discuss these findings in light of current theoretical frameworks and highlight avenues for future research.

A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Intervention for Social Work Clients with Children Facing Complex Financial Problems in Finland (FinSoc): A Study Protocol.

PURPOSE: Social work clients often face complex financial problems. We have developed a financial social work intervention, FinSoc, to increase financial literacy and economic self-efficacy and reduce financial anxiety among parents with financial problems in Finland. The aim of this pilot randomized controlled trial is to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of the intervention. This paper, a study protocol, describes the design and implementation of the trial. Study protocols are articles detailing a priori the research plan, rationale, proposed methods and plans for how a clinical trial will be conducted. METHOD: This study is a pilot randomized controlled trial with a mixed methods approach applying both quantitative measures and qualitative interviews. Participating social work clients with children are randomly assigned to either the treatment or the waiting list control group at a ratio of 1:1. The treatment group receives the intervention and the control group receives services as usual. The quantitative data from social work clients are collected at three measurement points. Qualitative interviews are conducted post-intervention with both clients receiving, and professionals implementing the intervention. The feasibility is assessed through recruitment and retention rates and the interviews with social work professionals providing the intervention. Acceptability is assessed through feedback from participants on satisfaction with the intervention and usefulness of the specific intervention components. Potential effectiveness is measured by financial literacy, economic self-efficacy and financial anxiety. DISCUSSION: The intervention is hypothesized to increase financial literacy and economic self-efficacy and reduce financial anxiety among social work clients with children. The results of this pilot study will increase the evidence base of financial social work and offer new insights for developing interventions for clients experiencing financial difficulties.

Types of Economic Abuse in Postseparation Lives of Women Experiencing IPV: A Qualitative Study from Finland.

There is growing interest in economic abuse as a form of violence against women, but the research has largely addressed cohabiting couples thus far, with few detailed explorations of women's experiences of economic abuse in postseparation life. Using interviews with 11 women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV), this study investigates the types of economic abuse in the lives of these women. Inductive thematic analysis revealed four types of postseparation economic abuse (PSEA): economic sabotage, withholding resources, financial harassment, and stealing. These results help better understand and recognize the different forms of PSEA. Recommendations are provided for incorporating PSEA as a central component of IPV research, practice, and policy.

Gendering boundary work: Experiences of work-family practices among Finnish working parents during COVID-19 lockdown.

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak and governmental lockdowns changed the everyday lives of families with children worldwide. Due to remote work recommendations and the closing of school premises and childcare centers, work-family boundaries became blurred in many families. In this study, we examine the possibly gendered boundary work practices among Finnish parents during the COVID-19 lockdown in spring 2020 by asking, how do parents perceive the blurring of work-family boundaries? What kind of boundary work practices did families develop to manage their work and family roles, and were these practices gendered and how? Boundary practices are analyzed by combining theories of doing boundaries and gender theories in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to survey data. The results revealed that during lockdown, both spatial and temporal boundaries blurred or partly disappeared, and boundary practices developed by families were highly gendered. Especially in families where childcare practices had been gendered already before the lockdown, it was predominantly mothers, who shouldered the main responsibility of increased childcare and struggled to manage their work duties. Hence, families had varying means to cope with blurring boundaries based on their ability to switch to remote work, but also on their work-family practices before the pandemic.