Equal parenting research

Outcomes for kids, moms, violence and more

1. A 2023 meta-analysis of thirty-nine studies published between 2010 and 2022, with a sample size of 1.5 million, controlling for income and the presence of stepparents, found that shared parenting was nearly as beneficial to children as being raised by married, cohabiting parents. “Systematic review and theoretical comparison of children’s outcomes in post-separation living arrangements.” University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

2. Child outcomes improve the closer to 50/50 the schedule is. Source: “Father-Child Relationships: The Missing Link between Parenting Time and Children’s Mental and Physical Health in Parenting Plan Evaluations: Applied Research for the Family Court.” William Fabricius et al. More from Dr. Fabricius:

This is a really great overview on the most recent shared-parenting research from Arizona State University's William Fabricius, who found, definitively, that stress caused by a high-conflict co-parenting relationship decreases the closer the schedule gets to 50-50.In other words, it's the parenting schedule in the abstract that matters, perhaps even more than the number of hours the kid spends with each parent:

"If you have a high-conflict divorce and the child is worried he is going to be abandoned and is seeing the dad 35% of the time, that leaves enough time that the child isn't seeing dad to worry that the dad is just going to give up on this situation. If the father is providing an equal home, that provides the security in the child's mind that neither parent is going away."

3. Single dads are more engaged fathers in shared parenting schedules. “The Disengaged Noncustodial Father: Implications for Social Work Practice with the Divorced Family.” Edward Kruk

4. 50/50 co-parenting is correlated with lower domestic violence.

5. Equal parenting is correlated with more gender pay equality. My own survey of 2,300 single moms gives a snapshot of what researchers in Sweden and Spain have found: Equal time-sharing laws inspire employment and pay equality for married parents in those communities. Mind=blown. Also: duh.