Both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses on a large and recent Swedish data set demonstrate that, compared to children in intact families, children who have experienced family dissolution or reconstitution show lower educational attainment at age 16. Time constraints do not seem to be an important mechanism behind the negative effect of separation. Economic deprivation affects children's attainment negatively, but downward social mobility appears to be an even more important causal mechanism: Losing the parent with the higher social position probably reduces social capital and aspirations. When we control for socioeconomic characteristics, a small net effect of separation and reconstitution remains.

In research on fatherhood premiums and motherhood penalties in career-related outcomes, employers' discriminatory behaviours are often argued to constitute a possible explanation for observed gender gaps. However, there is as yet no conclusive evidence of such discrimination. Utilizing a field experiment design, we test (i) whether job applicants are subject to recruitment discrimination on the basis of their gender and parenthood status, and (ii) whether discrimination by gender and parenthood is conditional on the qualifications required by the job applied for. We applied for 2,144 jobs in the Swedish labour market, randomly assigning gender and parenthood status to fictitious job applicants. Based on the rate of callbacks, we do not find that employers practise systematic recruitment discrimination on the basis of the job applicants' gender or parental status, neither in relation to less qualified nor more highly qualified jobs.

Data from the 1981 and 1991 Swedish Level of Living Surveys are used to analyze any impact of divorce on individuals' psychological well-being. The longitudinal structure of the data set makes it possible to follow respondents, and any change in their civil status, over time. The results reveal that divorcees, both female and male, reported a higher risk for psychological distress in 1991 than did their married and cohabiting or remarried counterparts. In general, this is only to a very limited extent because of divorcees having a lower well-being already before the divorce (in 1981), and the difference in well-being cannot be entirely explained by other factors (e.g., income or access to social support) either. An interesting gender difference is found as psychological distress precedes divorce among women, whereas, instead, it lasts longer following divorce among men.