Further selection of respondents was made according to
the following criteria: (1) residence in the household of a biological parent, (2) divorce or separation as the only
possible reason why the biological parents do not live
together and (3) sufficient information about the current
family constellation (intact, step or single parent family).
These criteria resulted in a research sample of 1,619 pupils
of whom 757 boys and 862 girls, for whom the descriptive
statistics are shown in Table 1. These criteria imply that we
restrict the comparison of children living with both biological parents to either children living with a single parent
following parental divorce or separation or to children
living with a parent and stepparent following parental
divorce. Single parent or stepfamily formations following a
parental death and stepfamilies formed by a previously
never-married parent’s entry into a union with a partner are
excluded from the research sample.