Does Joint Physical Custody “Cause” Children’s Better Outcomes?

ABSTRACT

Policymakers and researchers are concerned with whether joint physical custody (JPC) produces better outcomes for children than sole custody. Although several review articles summarizing up to 61 empirical articles demonstrate very positive answers, many of the research designs used compromise the ability to claim that it is JPC per se—and not selection effects—that causes the effect. We discuss several research design issues, such as propensity score analysis, that can more powerfully probe the question of causality. Some studies have already been conducted employing these strategies and more are recommended and likely to soon be forthcoming. On the basis of this comprehensive review we conclude that JPC probably does cause benefits to children on average, and that social scientists can now provisionally recommend rebuttably presumptive JPC to policymakers.     

Risk Regulation in High-Conflict Parenting

That “there is no gathering of roses without risking the thorns” might be the simplest way to think of the paradox of relationship. Risk regulation as psychological mechanism minimizes rejection (thorns) and maximizes assurance (roses). In the article, the social psychology of risk regulation is set in the context of divorce and high-conflict parenting. Risk regulation provides not only guidance for treatment, but also a conceptual framework for professional opinion in forensic evaluation and legal consideration.     

College Students’ Perceptions of Media Portrayals of Divorce

This study takes an exploratory, qualitative approach to examine college students’ perceptions about divorce in the media. Findings suggest that participants perceived both positive and negative representations of divorced families in the media they consume, highlighting the complex nature of navigating and communicating through a divorce. Specifically, college students reported on aspects of the ex-spousal relationship, how children are affected, and the contrast between life pre- and postdivorce. An inductive theme analysis revealed several positive and negative media representations of divorce. Largely, college students perceive media messages about divorce to be accurate portrayals and impactful representations.     

Parental Alienation: A Measurement Tool

The Rowlands Parental Alienation Scale (RPAS) was administered to 592 parents along with measures of convergent and discriminant validity. The scale was designed to capture the eight domains of parental alienating behavior posited in the literature. Factor analysis extracted only six factors, one of which was not included in the original eight: (a) campaign of denigration towards the alienated parent, (b) the independent thinker phenomenon, (c) reflexive support, (d) presence of borrowed scenarios, (e) spread of animosity to extended family, and (f) lack of positive affect towards the alienated parent. Parents who reported either that a court evaluation or court findings had confirmed the presence of parental alienation scored significantly higher on all six RPAS factors as well as on the overall RPAS score.     

Reasons That Could Lead People to Divorce in an Evolutionary Perspective: Evidence from Cyprus

In the current research, we aimed to identify the reasons that could drive people to get a divorce. In Study 1, we employed qualitative research methods, and we identified 62 reasons that could potentially drive people to get a divorce. Using quantitative research methods, in Study 2 we classified these reasons into 7 broader factors. We found that being a harmful spouse was the most important factor for divorce, followed by incompatibility and in-law problems. We also found significant sex differences in several factors such as women indicating a higher willingness than men to divorce a harmful spouse. In addition, participants with children were less willing to divorce a harmful spouse than those who had no children. Finally, using second-order principal components analysis, we classified the 7 factors into 2 broader domains of reasons for getting a divorce.     

Financial journeys of Australian parents after separation – transitions into and out of poverty

It is well established that relationship separation has greater negative economic consequences for mothers than for fathers in Australia and other developed countries. While research has shown that, at an aggregate level, such negative impacts tend to diminish with time, the rate of change is generally slower for mothers than fathers, and a higher proportion of mothers than fathers continue to experience entrenched financial difficulties. Less is known about the variability of economic journeys experienced by women and men, taken separately, and factors influencing diverse economic trajectories. Drawing on data from the Longitudinal Study of Separated Families (LSSF), which followed up a large sample parents at three post‐separation points, this article examines poverty rates across a 4‐year period, transitions into and out of poverty and factors affecting these pathways.     

Parenting Disputes After Separation and Divorce: Who Needs a Family Lawyer?

Australia's family law system continues to be plagued by serious delays. This article acknowledges the need for legal interventions in post‐separation parenting disputes in which individuals may be at risk, or in cases of genuine emergency. The article next contrasts cases involving significant risk or urgency with the many ‘ordinary’ (even if sometimes complex) post‐separation disputes over parenting in which these circumstances are not present. I argue that in such cases, legal advice, legally informed dispute processes, and court hearings are remnants from earlier attitudes to separation and divorce. These interventions are expensive, frequently destructive of ongoing parental relationships, and at their heart, inappropriate for considering the needs of children. They also divert time and resources from the critical investigative and legal decision‐making processes needed in urgent or risk‐related cases. I propose that legal narratives in ‘ordinary’ post‐separation parenting disputes be replaced by narratives focused on the main drivers of these disputes, which are invariably expressed in terms of relationship difficulties. Such narratives are amenable to facilitative, therapeutic, and systemic interventions aimed at achieving self‐determined resolutions. They contrast markedly with narratives reflecting common law notion of normative resolutions derived from the application of legal precedent. Key issues in the first section of the article are then teased out via the reflections of an imaginary separated parent in an ‘ordinary,’ albeit difficult and emotionally intense, dispute about how to care for the children. In the final section, I offer brief clinical and systemic reflections on past practice and on future narratives focused on individual self‐determination.     

Divorce and parity progression following the death of a child: A register-based study from Finland

Most studies that have examined whether a child’s death influences parental relationship stability have used small-scale data sets and their results are inconclusive. A likely reason is that child loss affects not only the risk of parental separation, but also the risk of having another child. Hence parity progression and separation must be treated as two competing events in relation to child loss. The analysis in this paper used Finnish register data from 1971 to 2003, covering over 100,000 married couples whose durations of both first marriage and parenthood could be observed. We ran parity-specific Cox regressions in which process time started from the birth of each additional child. All marriages included women of childbearing age, none of whom had experienced any child death on entering the analysis. We find that child loss only modestly influences the divorce risk, whereas its effect on the risk of parity progression is considerable.     

Exploring the Relationship between Secularity and Marital Behavior

The higher religiosity of women is a longstanding feature of the religious landscape in the Western World. With the recent vibrancy of secular movements, the greater religiosity of women is reflected in a gender imbalance within the secular groups. For instance, more than three quarters of American atheists are male. Given the effects of both religiosity and secularity on worldview and lifestyle, this gender imbalance is likely consequential for marital behavior and outcomes. Using the latest cycle of the Canadian General Social Survey focused on family, this paper examines how marital behavior of individuals without any tie with religion or spirituality compares with others. Secular males are found appreciably more likely to experience marital dissolution, whereas their female counterparts are shown no different from others. This result lends support to the theories that posit religiosity as a complementary marital trait, requiring the mating of the like. The analysis also indicates that union formation behavior of secular females manifests a larger shift away from the traditional conceptions of marriage compared with secular males. Various explanations are explored.