Does a nonresident parent have the right to make decisions for his nonmarital children?: Trends in legal custody among paternity cases

Chen, Yiyu

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.01.025

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…However, information reported by all custodial mothers (both divorced and unmarried) indicate that a large share report visitation “privileges” or joint custody (i.e., shared decision making) without having a child support order (U.S. Census Bureau, ). Evidence from Wisconsin further shows that joint legal custody orders have increased considerably among unmarried parents who go to court (Chen, ). New proposals around parenting time are targeted at unmarried parents in the child support program, and our results are directly relevant for this population, but our inability to identify parents who only have visitation orders prevents us from generalizing beyond this group.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visitation Orders, Family Courts, and Fragile Families

Waller

Emory

2018

J of Marriage and Family

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Despite proposals to make parenting time a part of all new child support orders, limited research has examined why some unmarried are more likely than others to establish legal visitation agreements. This mixed-methods study draws on qualitative data collected from unmarried mothers and fathers living in New York (N = 70) to develop hypotheses about the contexts in which parents set up visitation orders, which are then tested in a large sample of unmarried parents living apart (N = 1,392). Both qualitative and quantitative findings show that disengagement, cooperation, and conflict in the coparenting relationship postseparation influence unmarried parents' decisions about whether to establish a legal visitation agreement. The qualitative data further illustrate how parents' distrust of the court system, preference for informal agreements, and uncertainty about the custody of nonmarital children inform their decisions. The article concludes by considering approaches for helping low-conflict coparents set up visitation agreements outside of family court.About two in five children in the United States are born to unmarried parents, and the majority of these parents are living apart within 5 years of

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visitation Orders, Family Courts, and Fragile Families

Waller

Emory

2018

J of Marriage and Family

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“…767.41(4)(a)2). Chen (2015) found a large increase in joint legal custody in nonmarital cases in Wisconsin after this policy change that cannot be explained by case characteristics; however, Chen and Meyer (2017) indicated that this increase in joint legal custody did not appear to be tied to an increase in joint physical custody. In 2021, after the data from this study were collected, Wisconsin enacted legislation requiring courts to provide a reason if one parent received placement for less than 25% of the time.…”

Section: Background and Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared placement in nonmarital families: An initial look

Costanzo

Reilly

2023

Family Relations

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ObjectiveWe aim to examine the prevalence of shared placement in nonmarital cases, and we then consider whether and how nonmarital shared placement cases differ from sole mother cases across a variety of case characteristics and child support outcomes.BackgroundIn recent decades, shared placement has become increasingly common after divorce, but less is known about the prevalence of shared placement in nonmarital cases. Shared placement may have important implications for families, and little is known about its prevalence in cases of unmarried parents or about characteristics of nonmarital families that have shared placement arrangements.MethodLeveraging unique administrative data on more than 6,000 nonmarital court cases, we examine the prevalence of shared placement, case characteristics of shared placement compared with sole placement cases, and child support measures by placement type. We use multivariate regression and bivariate analyses.ResultsAlthough sole mother placement remains the norm, data indicate an increase in shared placement arrangements in recent cohorts of nonmarital cases. We find parents with shared placement arrangements tend to be slightly more advantaged across several measures. On average, shared placement cases have lower child support orders and payments and substantively higher compliance rates in the year after petition.ConclusionShared placement is increasing in nonmarital cases in recent years. Nonmarital families who have shared placement arrangements differ in important ways from families with sole mother custody.ImplicationsFindings suggest the importance of expanding the relevant shared placement literature and policy discussion to consider nonmarital cases in addition to divorce cases.

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“…Divorce agreements typically include provisions for legal custody and physical custody, and these can be awarded to either parent solely or to both parents together (joint or shared). Joint legal custody had become the default preference in three-quarters of US states by 1988 (Mason, Fine, and Carnochan 2001), and by the late 1990s joint legal custody was granted in nearly half of all US divorces (Seltzer 1998) and over 70% of divorces in Wisconsin (Chen 2015) -the US state where the most research on shared custody has occurred. Changes in shared physical custody arrangements emerged later.…”

Section: Shared Custody and Prior Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increases in shared custody after divorce in the United States

Meyer¹,

Carlson²,

Alam³

2022

DemRes

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BACKGROUNDWhile a striking rise in shared physical custody after divorce has been observed in Wisconsin and some European countries, the same trend in shared custody has not been documented in US national data. OBJECTIVEWe provide new evidence on the time trend in shared physical custody after divorce in the United States. METHODSWe use eight waves of data from the Current Population Survey -Child Support Supplement to estimate logit models and conduct a formal decomposition. RESULTSThe likelihood of shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled in the United States from before 1985 until 2010-2014, from 13% to 34%. Non-linear probability (logit) models show that non-Hispanic Whites and more advantaged individuals are more likely to report shared physical custody. Both sequential multivariate models and a more formal decomposition show that the increase cannot be explained by changes in the characteristics of those divorcing; rather we find that several characteristics become more strongly associated with shared physical custody over time. CONCLUSIONSOur results suggest that shared physical custody is increasing in the United States as a whole, and this increase appears to reflect changing norms and policies that favor shared custody. These changing patterns have important implications for children's living

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Does a nonresident parent have the right to make decisions for his nonmarital children?: Trends in legal custody among paternity cases

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Visitation Orders, Family Courts, and Fragile Families

Visitation Orders, Family Courts, and Fragile Families

Shared placement in nonmarital families: An initial look

Increases in shared custody after divorce in the United States

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