Joint Custody Improves Fathers’ Lives and Boosts Kids’ School Performance
New research shows that keeping fathers actively involved after divorce leads to higher earnings, better mental health, and stronger academic results for children—with no downside for mothers.
When parents separate, legal systems must choose whether children live primarily with one parent or continue being raised jointly. Despite decades of legal shifts toward shared parenting, reliable evidence on how child custody decisions shape family life after divorce has remained surprisingly scarce.
A study by Stella Canessa, Gordon B. Dahl, Anna Hasselqvist, Costas Meghir, Susan Niknami, Mårten Palme, Helmut Rainer, Olof Rosenqvist, and Pengpeng Xiao examines over 25 years of Swedish court custody rulings linked to national administrative records. To overcome selection bias, the researchers exploit a key feature of the Swedish legal system: when separating parents cannot agree, cases are randomly assigned to judges who differ significantly in their propensity to award joint custody.
The study finds that joint custody yields substantial benefits for fathers. Three years after a ruling, fathers awarded joint custody are 25 percentage points more likely to earn above the 25th percentile and 17 percentage points less likely to use antidepressants. Joint custody also increases a father’s likelihood of remarrying by 14 percentage points within three years.
"For fathers, joint custody substantially raises earnings and improves mental health, consistent with sustained paternal involvement enhancing labor market attachment and psychological well-being." - Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper 2543
For mothers, joint custody produces no measurable impacts on either earnings or mental health. Because mothers typically retain custody under sole custody arrangements, shared custody does not alter their daily access to children in the same fundamental way it does for fathers.
Children also benefit significantly. Children assigned to joint custody score 0.47 standard deviations higher on standardized tests and attend primary schools with higher overall quality. Crucially, these academic gains come with no detectable harm to children's mental health, as rates of prescriptions for depression, anxiety, or ADHD remain unchanged.
Additionally, joint custody keeps former partners in closer geographic proximity and shows no increase in intimate partner violence allegations. Overall, the findings demonstrate that joint custody acts as a net positive for family well-being after divorce.