The longitudinal survey New Families in the Netherlands (NFN) was held among parents with minor children who divorced or separated from a cohabiting union after 2009. At that time (March 2009) a new law came into effect that gave children the right to equal care by both parents and that obliged parents to construct a parenting plan. NFN aimed to collect information about parents’ legal arrangements at the time of divorce, in particular children’s residence arrangements and parenting plans, and how these arrangements affect parents and children. NFN was based on a random sample of parents who divorced/separated after 2009 from the Dutch population registers (main sample). In addition, data among two control groups were collected: parents who divorced prior to 2009 and cohabiting/married parents (intact families). The control samples were also based on random samples from the registers. The first wave took place in 2012-2013. Respondents filled in a web-survey and were sent a paper-and-pencil questionnaire at the final reminder. In total, 4481 parents from the main sample participated, 2173 from the control group of intact families and 792 form the control group of divorced parents.

Researchers using the NFN data are asked to include an acknowledgment and a reference to the codebook (see codebook section 1: Use of data).