A new study from the Ifo Institute, which analyzed Swedish court and register data, found that when courts in contentious custody cases award joint parental rights instead of sole custody, fathers and children benefit significantly, while mothers generally show no measurable disadvantages.
The research challenges the prevailing public debate about custody arrangements, which often assumes a zero-sum game-that what benefits one parent must be at the expense of the other or the child. Helmut Rainer, head of the Ifo Center for Labor Market and Population Economics, stated that the findings prove this assumption incorrect, showing instead that shared custody strengthens the economic stability of families after a separation and positively influences children’s development.
Specifically, fathers with joint custody arrangements tend to have higher incomes, a benefit that is particularly pronounced among fathers in lower-income brackets. Furthermore, the likelihood of such fathers taking antidepressants decreases by 17 percentage points. For the children involved, test scores improve, and they are more likely to attend better schools. For mothers, the study found neither positive nor negative effects. Additionally, the data did not confirm fears that joint custody increases the risk of domestic violence.
Rainer concluded that the study provides vital empirical evidence for the policy discussions surrounding custody regulations being held in many countries.
The researchers analyzed 56,188 court rulings from 45 Swedish district courts between 1992 and 2021, cross-referencing them with registry data concerning income, education, health, and crime rates.
