Dimitri Mortelmans

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Verified

Dimitri verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Full professor at University of Antwerp

Joint physical custody (JPC)—where children alternate between parental households after a separation—has been found to be on a rise in a diversity of European countries. However, variations in sampling, data and operationalization consistently complicate the comparative mapping of JPC prevalence and its correlates. In this respect, the 2021 EU-SILC...

This entry looks at the uncoupling of relationships, both married and cohabiting. The phenomenon of relationship dissolution has significantly impacted the family dynamics of both adults and children in most western nations since the last quarter of the twentieth century. The entry first provides a comprehensive overview of the sociological and leg...

Increased life expectancy and reduced fertility mean more generations are living simultaneously but with fewer members. There is also a growing group of older people (aged 80 and over) who need care and support. This impacts mutual support within families and the care provided by public or private care organisations. Across OECD countries, on avera...

This open access textbook provides an introduction to the software program NVivo, the most widely used qualitative analysis program. It is a versatile program with an extensive range of accessible analysis tools, flexibly deployable in the diversity of qualitative analysis approaches. Qualitative analysis is almost standard practice today with the...

This chapter provides a foundational understanding of qualitative research, delineating its essential characteristics and the place of NVivo in the analytic process. The chapter shows the flexibility inherent in qualitative methods and their adaptability across various academic disciplines. The chapter defines qualitative inquiry as a type of resea...

This chapter familiarises readers with the workspace and specific jargon of NVivo. The chapter describes the overall layout of the workspace and the navigation around the different tools of the program. Specific attention is devoted to interface components such as the Navigation View, the List View, and the Detail View. The chapter also introduces...

Memos are personal instruments that a qualitative researcher generally uses for themself or in team research, whereby ideas are written down when they arise during the analytical process. Memos enhance the analytical depth of qualitative research by allowing researchers to record insights, reflect on data, and document the analysis process. NVivo c...

This chapter addresses the application of NVivo in analysing focus group data. It discusses transcription, coding, and querying group interviews, offering strategies to handle the dynamic and multifaceted data that focus groups generate. The chapter emphasises the double-layered analytical level in focus groups and shows ways to deal with this mult...

The chapter examines the challenges and techniques for incorporating social media data into NVivo. NVivo allows three types of social media data to be used in the program: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube data. The chapter shows how this data can be imported into the program using the add-on NCapture. This tool facilitates the import to either textual...

This chapter does not introduce any new tools. Instead, it reviews the tools already discussed in this book and applies them when a researcher wants to use NVivo for literature reviews. The chapter describes methods for importing bibliographic data, coding literature, and synthesising findings from the literature. The chapter introduces a double co...

This chapter explores the built-in Artificial Intelligence tools in NVivo, focusing on semi-automatic and automatic coding features. It discusses how AI can assist in the initial coding phases, potentially accelerating the analytical process in its early stages. The chapter critically examines the implications of AI in qualitative research, debatin...

This chapter discusses the application of NVivo in mixed methods research, highlighting how the software can integrate both qualitative and quantitative data. Being a qualitative research tool, the possibilities of NVivo to do quantitative analysis are limited if not absent (except for some graphing). However, NVivo allows the coding of open questi...

Data coding is one of the most important steps in a qualitative research project. The researcher can only arrive at reliable results in later analysis phases with adequately coded data. Coding means that the researcher labels all information that says something about the same subject and brings similar pieces of information together under the umbre...

This chapter offers an introductory overview of NVivo, illustrating its primary functions and limitations as a qualitative data analysis software. NVivo is presented as a tool with three basic tools or operations: data management, coding data and querying (retrieving) coded data. These elements support analytical steps done outside the program, suc...

NVivo is a code-and-retrieve program whereby coded material is retrieved using queries to get a systematic overview of a specific topic in your data. That makes the query tools one of the most important tools in the program. NVivo has eight different types of queries, each performing different types of searches in a project. The chapter presents ea...

This chapter looks at the spectrum of methodological approaches in qualitative data analysis. It mainly focuses on Grounded Theory as one of the major approaches in the family of qualitative approaches. The chapter outlines qualitative analysis's structured yet flexible nature, demonstrating how NVivo can facilitate a wide range of qualitative anal...

ABSTRACT Researchers have traditionally viewed conflictual divorce as a form of marital separation characterized by intense conflicts between the divorcing partners, but only recently has there been more focus on its temporal dimension. However, it remains unclear how the duration of this conflict-ridden process itself acts as a stressor, and how d...

Previous research has highlighted the impact of social network partners on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors and the significant role that siblings often play in providing lifelong support, especially in times of important life events. However, a few studies have examined the intragenerational transmission of divorce risks. Given the increasing...

Since the late 20th century, a combination of sociodemographic changes and increasing costs of pensions, health and social care challenged the intergenerational welfare contract. Besides, governments have been substituting more parts of care services for informal care. Given this reality, little is known to what extent informal cares prefer a highe...

Introduction With the continuing advancement of digitalization of everyday life, digital literacy becomes more and more a necessity. As a consequence, those who are digitally illiterate experience digital exclusion, which increasingly equals social exclusion. Older adults are typically less digitally active and also less skilled in digital technolo...

Although most empirical research has focused on divorcing individuals’ experiences before or after marriage dissolution, how people understand and evaluate themselves during their lasting divorce processes has been largely understudied. We aimed to close this gap by learning how individuals regard their longer-lasting divorce process and how those...

Introduction: Previous research findings painted a mixed picture regarding conflictual divorce. A lack of empirical clarity hinders professionals from intervening with this population effectively. Methods: Based on two-wave interview data with 21 divorcing individuals from Lithuania, we explored an array of conflicts that could be related to enduri...

Many authors have documented a global rise in singlehood during the past decades, expanding beyond Western or industrialized countries. Simultaneously, the number of single households is increasing, not only due to the aging of the population, but also because young adults are increasingly living solo. Whereas having no partner and solo living do n...

In vergelijking met de rest vanEuropa, maakte België een vroege start in het wettelijk prioriteren vanverblijfsco-ouderschap. Tezamen met een maatschappelijke impuls richting hetdelen van de zorg voor kinderen en het onderhouden van betekenisvolleouder-kind relaties, bracht dit een snelle popularisering op gang, waardoor Belgiëzich momenteel bij de...

Empirical evidences on intragenerational transmission of life course have been demonstrated and that interpersonal similarity may moderate the effect. In particular, siblings who are more similar in their demographic characteristics are more likely to follow each other’s life course transitions. Focusing on parental home-leaving and building upon t...

The COVID-19 pandemic and related physical distancing measures have disproportionally affected older adults living alone due to their greater social isolation. Unlike previous studies on the subject, the current research recognizes the diversity amongst older adults living alone by considering the impact of marital history. Combining information fr...

Evolutionary social science is having a renaissance. This volume showcases the empirical and theoretical advancements produced by the evolutionary study of romantic relationships. The editors assembled an international collection of contributors to trace how evolved psychological mechanisms shape strategic computation and behavior across the life s...

While research has focused on self-concept before or after marriage dissolution, very little research has investigated how individuals understand and evaluate themselves during the longer-lasting and usually highly conflictual divorce process. Qualitative interview data with Lithuanians 6 months or more into their divorce processes suggest that div...

Being one of the quintessential resources to bounce back from adversities, the complexities of social support in the context of transitions to single parenthood are seldom fully grasped. While many studies are limited by (quantitative) data on type and intensity of support received, in-depth qualitative data facilitates an understanding of the hurd...

Despite the relevance of loneliness to family scholarship, an attempt to integrate various perspectives on loneliness with relevant insights from loneliness research for understanding contemporary families has not yet been made. Although quantitative researchers have developed measures that have been fruitful in broadening insights about loneliness...

Dit rapport kadert binnen het survey-onderzoek EF63 naar informele zorg in Vlaanderen van het Steunpunt Welzijn, Volksgezondheid en Gezin. Maatschappelijke en demografische veranderingen en een beleid gericht op de ‘vermaatschappelijking van zorg’ bevestigen het toenemend belang dat wordt gehecht aan informele zorg. Het centraal doel van dit onderz...

Despite the fact that the size and diversity of migrant populations and their descendants in Europe have increased substantially throughout the past decades, income dynamics of union dissolution have not been studied among populations with a migrant background in the European context. Using data from the Belgian Social Security Registers from 1999–...

Background: Previous studies on the role of partner choice in relationship dissolution have shown that exogamous marriages often have higher divorce risks. Yet, given that these studies focus only on marriages, it remains unclear whether the same dynamics can be seen in unmarried cohabiting couples, or what the exact role of a premarital cohabitati...

Onderzoek stelt dat een gevoel van eerlijkheid omtrent de overeenkomst over onderhoudsbijdragen voor kinderen na een ouderlijke relatiebreuk wanbetaling kan helpen voorkomen. Dit artikel bouwt hierop verder door aan de hand van diepte-interviews bij Vlaamse ouders na te gaan i) wat de ervaring van (on)eerlijkheid betekent in het kader van afspraken...

Onderzoek stelt dat een gevoel van eerlijkheid omtrent de overeenkomst over onderhoudsbijdragen voor kinderen na een ouderlijke relatiebreuk wanbetaling kan helpen voorkomen. Dit artikel bouwt hierop verder door aan de hand van diepte-interviews bij Vlaamse ouders na te gaan i) wat de ervaring van (on)eerlijkheid betekent in het kader van afspraken...

Although the literature on informal caregiving for older parents shows that daughters have a higher tendency to provide care compared with sons, only a few studies have focused on the gender composition of all children or parents’ entire range of care options. Our study examines the effect of children’s gender composition on informal and formal car...

The divorce literature has consistently found that—especially women—are negatively affected by relationship dissolution in terms of material wellbeing. There is, however, considerable debate on whether these effects are persistent or temporary. We use fixed effects models and control for the socioeconomic status of individuals who separated between...

School has been demonstrated to be important for children’s wellbeing and useful for the reintegration of armed conflict-affected children. However, little is known about the factors that can help stimulate the wellbeing of conflict-affected children in school. This study qualitatively explores the factors that contribute to the school-related subj...

Objective: This study will on will synthesize the available evidence on the prevalence and incidence of chemotherapy-induced taste alterations in adult cancer patients. Introduction: Taste and smell alterations in cancer patients due to chemotherapy affect patients' quality of life and can cause malnutrition. Recent knowledge about the incidence...

Studies have suggested that the timing of leaving one’s parental home can be influenced by a number of factors, such as gender, educational background, and parental characteristics. However, despite empirical evidence showing that siblings may influence one another’s life course decisions, intragenerational effects on leaving home have not been ade...

Women without a partner can become single mothers by choice through the use of fertility treatments. In Belgium, the decision to accept a candidate single mother by choice rests with the fertility clinic’s multidisciplinary team of fertility practitioners. As a result, the fertility practitioners fulfil a gatekeeping role. However, this can cause a...

The similarity of the Big Five personality traits of ex-spouses and new partners was examined post-divorce. The notion that divorcees replicate their partner choice (fixed-type hypothesis) was tested against the hypotheses that they learn to select a new partner with more marriage-stabilizing personality traits than their former spouse (learning hy...

In line with social exchange theory, the Big Five traits are hypothesized to affect marital stability. We performed a meta-analysis, which restricted the study selection to title searches and broad-scale Big Five trait effects. In total, 51 study effects were incorporated into the analysis (N = 25,153). The findings showed that neurotic, extraverte...

This PhD project examined the association between the Big Five personality traits and marital separation by investigating five potential effects. The research data was derived from national representative panel surveys from multiple countries, which was made possible by the recent incorporation of the Big Five traits into these types of surveys.

Although siblings may differ considerably, the similarities between them are often an important source of emotional support in one's life and influence one's life course trajectories. In this review on the topic of sibling relationship and cross‐sibling effect interactions, we aim to encourage research interest and facilitate knowledge building. We...

Objective: The present study aims to investigate changes in the frequency of parent-child contact among Europeans aged 65 years and over within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, while recognizing heterogeneity within the group of older adults. Background: Physical distancing measures have been implemented worldwide to curb the spread of the CO...

Contrary to approaching work and family as conflictual roles, a shift towards acknowledgement of the positive interaction between work and family has been detected. This research investigated whether married/cohabiting and divorced/separated parents differ in terms of work–family enrichment, considering their gender and relationship status after se...

Limited information exists on life satisfaction and hope of internally displaced children in conflict-affected areas. Using both the ecological and resilience frameworks on children’s well-being, this study investigates the associations between age, gender, parent-child relationship and livelihood support on life satisfaction and hope of conflict a...

Until the end of the twentieth century, child custody arrangements after separation typically continued the gendered pre-separation parenting division, with mothers taking up childcare and fathers paying child support. Recently, there has been a significant rise in co-parenting after separation, reflecting the trend towards more socio-economic, wor...

This introductory chapter provides the rationale for adopting an interdisciplinary approach to study the implications of shared physical custody arrangements for families and their members. The Chapter gives a rapid overview of the current state of the literature on shared physical custody in the legal, sociological and psychological literature and...

Aim Alterations in taste are distressing side effects for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The Center for Gastrology (Belgium) developed a self-care intervention based on taste control. This intervention contains an assessment of the individual taste and food hedonics. It provides recipes based on the individual assessed hedonics profile, so...

Purpose: Taste and smell alterations are known side-effects of an oncological treatment with chemotherapy and can cause reduced food intake and lead to malnutrition and cachexia. ESPEN guidelines state that organizations should foresee a protocol to identify patients at nutritional risk and that screening should be available for all patients. The C...

This study aims to deepen our understanding of the perception of fairness in child support agreements. We build on the theory of reaching agreements and current knowledge considering justice perceptions in child support cases, applied to the specific case of Belgium, which lacks a uniform system for child support determination. Using qualitative in...

Women who expect an upcoming divorce have the possibility of taking action in order to protect themselves against the projected negative financial consequences. In this paper we investigate whether they do. Using retrospective data for a sample of 884 divorced women from the Divorce in Flanders (DiF)-survey, we estimate the difference in the probab...

PURPOSE Currently, limited evidence-based guidelines exist for the effective management of chemotherapy induced dysgeusia in cancer outpatients. In this pilot study, we used innovative insights from gastrological sciences such as selective taste management to improve the taste of bread for cancer outpatients. We investigated whether it is feasible...

Few studies have examined the factors related to children’s perception of safety following exposure to armed conflict. This study examines the influence of sociodemographic and family factors alongside length of stay within the community on the perception of safety among children affected and displaced by armed conflict during the post-displacement...

Nonresident mothers who formally pay child support are becoming increasingly prevalent. If the profile of female payers differs from that of men or if their payment is motivated differently, existing gender‐based child support policies and enforcement strategies face significant challenges. This study uses the payment framework of male compliance t...

This open access book provides an overview of the ever-growing phenomenon of children in shared physical custody thereby providing legal, psychological, family sociological and demographical insights. It describes how, despite the long evolution of broken families, only the last decade has seen a radical shift in custody arrangements for children i...

Currently, limited evidence-based guidelines exist for the effective management of chemotherapy induced dysgeusia in cancer outpatients. In this pilot study, we used innovative insights from gastrological sciences such as selective taste management to improve the taste of bread for cancer outpatients. We investigated whether it is feasible for canc...

When it comes to disability, powerful ideas are articulated in and circulated through the media. Through framing analysis, this study examines how the media portray disability and people with disabilities in a sample of Flemish print news and entertainment magazines. The study aims to understand the dominant and alternative frames related to disabi...

This study considers the spillover effect of work-family enrichment in parents on the behaviour of their children. Using a mediation model with parental well-being and parenting styles, the study unravels the associations between a positive perspective on work-life balance and the outcomes in a child’s live. Using 4012 parents from the data of the...

Experiencing a divorce can be challenging and have a lasting impact on people's lives, but does it change your personality? By making use of large panel surveys from Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, intra-individual change in the Big Five personality traits of those who separated during a four-year observation, was compared to that of th...

This article studies how the gender division in time spent on housework is associated with relationship dissolution among Danish couples. The use of time diary information on the actual time spent on housework for both partners leads to more precise measures than in previous studies. Two waves of the Danish Time Use Survey provided data on 3,434 co...

A book series dedicated to the harmonisation and unification of family and succession law in Europe. The series includes comparative legal studies and materials as well as studies on the effects of international and European law making within the national legal systems in Europe. The books are published in English, French or German under the auspic...

The literature on the “boomerang effect” (returning to the parental home) is predominantly focused on young adults returning to their parents’ home in response to economic hardship. In this chapter, we study the boomerang effect in the context of divorce by looking at who returns to the parental home after a relationship break-up. The analysis is r...

The consequences of a relationship break-up span a wide range of foreseeable and unforeseeable effects in the life courses of adult individuals, their parents, and their children. One consistent finding in the divorce literature concerns the gender gap in the financial consequences of divorce. While there are huge international differences, it appe...

Social support has been shown to be important in the world of single parents. As for divorce, social support is mostly studied in a static way in academic research. Divorcing and/or separating people are in a dynamic state of a changing need for social support. This need changes over time within their process of becoming a single parent. In this ar...

Little is known about life satisfaction and hope in conflict displaced children. Based on the conceptualization of the ecological framework and ecological resilience framework on children wellbeing, this study explores the influence of individual factors, microsystem factors and humanitarian interventions on life satisfaction and hope of conflict d...

This study aims to define the perspectives taken by single mothers when combining work and motherhood in a stressful work–life constellation. One of the challenges for single mothers after divorce is to find a work–life balance in their single-parent family system. Regarding work-life balance, we take a General Strain Perspective, describing the wo...

Background: The study explores the health behavior and outcomes (bathing, diarrhea, and sickness) of children who benefitted from a WASH package intervention, children who benefitted from a non-WASH sectoral form of intervention and children with no form of humanitarian intervention in conflict-affected communities in Northeastern part of Nigeria....

Voorgaand onderzoek naar de rol van partnerkeuze in relatieontbinding toont aan dat partners die afkomstig zijn uit verschillende herkomstgroepen doorgaans een hogere kans hebben om uit elkaar te gaan. Deze onderzoeken focussen zich echter voornamelijk op huwelijken en het blijft daarom onduidelijk of dezelfde dynamieken zich ook aftekenen binnen o...

Objective This study investigated how single parents reorganize their family system after divorce. Background Families are dynamic systems that change over time and adapt to crises. Family researchers often approach divorce as a discrete event, however; and little is known about how single parents overcome this crisis and carry on with their lives...

Single parenthood is often approached as a problematic situation. People become single parents through divorce, separation, or bereavement and have to cope with this situation. These transitions to single parenthood lead to unforeseen problems with respect to the organization of the household. Nevertheless, there are also single parents for whom si...

Since the 1970s, several European countries have experienced high union dissolution risk as well as high unemployment rates. The extent to which adverse economic conditions are associated with union instability is still unknown. This study explores the relationship between both individual and aggregate unemployment and union dissolution risk in fiv...

The balancing act between work and family life can be a challenge that affects both the parents and other members of a family. This study investigates the effect of a parent’s experience of work-family conflict on the behavior of the child. Parental well-being and parenting act as mediators, as previous studies have suggested that this relationship...

This study focuses on financial consequences of a separation for migrant ex-partners. International literature on economic consequences has well documented the gender effects in the consequences of splitting up or the differences between former married and cohabiting couples. Building on these insights, this chapter focuses on the heterogeneity in...

This open access book collects the major discussions in divorce research in Europe. It starts with an understanding of divorce trends. Why was divorce increasing so rapidly throughout the US and Europe and do we see signs of a turn? Do cohabitation breakups influence divorce trends or is there a renewed stability on the partner market? In terms of...

Intergenerational solidarity is crucial to address the needs of ageing people. Numerous studies have identified geographic distance between parents and children as an important determinant of intergenerational support. This paper aims to examine to what extent parents' functional disabilities and children's support involvement relate to changing ge...

Feeling safe is important for children’s wellbeing and a requisite in humanitarian interventions with children affected by armed conflict during the post displacement phase. This study investigates the role of demographic factors, family factors (parent-child relationship, economic stress, family conflict, family composition) and length of stay in...

The extent to which, and the reasons why, children help to care for their parents are examined in an extensive range of literature. Although care for parents essentially takes place in parent–child dyads, many of these studies acknowledge that the amount of care a child gives is generally the outcome of collective decisions in multiple-child famili...

This paper studies how the gender division in time spent on housework is associated with relationship dissolution among Danish couples. The use of time diary information on the actual time spent on housework for both partners, leads to more precise measures than in previous studies. With Denmark being one of the most gender egalitarian societies to...

Plurality and Diversity of Family Relations in Europe - edited by Katharina Boele-Woelki August 2019

This article focuses on the labour market decisions of divorced women, surrounding the time of the factual separation. We build on earlier research, but explicitly distinguish between homemakers and unemployed women. Using retrospective data gathered from a sample of 1251 Flemish women from the Divorce in Flanders project (DiF 2009–2010), we perfor...

This study investigates the difference between married and divorced parents, accounting for gender and relationship status after divorce. It also provides insight into differences within the category of divorced parents. Data from 769 married and 1,424 divorced parents were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. The results identify a complex...

Discussions on policy and management initiatives to facilitate individuals throughout working careers take place without sufficient insight into how career paths are changing, how these changes are related to a modernization of life course biographies, and whether this leads to increased labour market transitions. This paper asks how new, flexible...

This article studies how local politicians combine work and family with their political activity. Local political office is often not a fulltime function and requires the combination with another professional activity. In combination with a family, local politicians combine three life spheres. The data consists of 259 in-depth interviews with local...

Experiences of family members are often overlooked in social research on gender transitions. The current article aims to address this gap by considering the experiences of partners during a gender transition, approaching this topic through role theory and the concepts of role ambiguity and role conflict. Seventeen partners and former partners were...