Equal parenting means less family violence
IPV, female homicide, child abuse and co-parenting conflict are lower when parenting time presumption is 50/50
This is adapted from The 50/50 Solution: The Surprisingly Simple Choice that Makes Moms, Dads, and Kids Happier and Healthier (Sourcebooks)
PDF version: Equal parenting means less family violence
“Equal parenting is fine — unless there is abuse.”
That is what I hear nearly time I mention this advocacy work aimed at making equal parenting the norm.
Translation: Men are presumed abusive until proven innocent.
Facts: Equal parenting presumptions lowers conflict, disincentivizes false allegations and lowers rates of intimate partner violence and child abuse.
Intimate partner violence and 50/50 laws
It makes sense: In the presence of a threat that one parent will lose a relationship with their children, violence spikes. Take the fight for parenting time out of breakups and allegations of, and actual violence go down.
In other words, violence is not a zero-sum argument against a presumption of equal parenting time. In fact, all the 50/50 parenting activists I know thoughtfully include provisions for abuse in all proposed laws and practices promoting equal parenting. The argument is to start parenting schedules at 50/50 and, if needed, deviate. No one argues for equal parenting for all children, all the time, under all circumstances.
As it stands, best interest language sets the discussion at 0/0 and incentivizes each parent to duke it out. In fact, research finds this winner-take-all approach to custody actually incites physical conflict between parents, with some studies finding as much as half of first-time family violence occurring after parents separate and within the context of a custody dispute. According to Edward Kruk, associate professor of social work at the University of British Columbia and shared parenting advocate, “This is no surprise, given the high stakes involved; when primary parent-child relationships are threatened, the risk of violence rises dramatically. When neither parent is threatened by the loss of his or her children, conflict diminishes.”1
This is proving out in communities where equal parenting is the legal presumption.
In 2016, the Kentucky legislature passed the country’s first presumption of equally shared parenting time when parents separate or divorce. What’s happened since that date has torpedoed arguments that a 50/50 presumption will increase family violence.
Since the law was enacted in 2017, Kentucky family court filings dropped by more than 16 percent despite the state’s population increase and the nationwide increase in divorce filings.2 Longtime Kentucky family court judge and Child Support Commission chair Lucinda Masterton told the state’s Courier Journal, “Since the [shared parenting] statute, we’ve had a lot fewer disagreements about parenting time.”3
But what about domestic violence? Doesn’t this new law discourage abuse victims from seeking sole custody if they fear an uphill battle under a 50/50 presumption?
That change is even more dramatic. Between 2015 and 2025, the number of domestic violence claims filed alongside family court filings fell by 22%. But this is not the whole story. Rates of family court filings involving claims of violence had already been on the decline—with rates down by more than 80 percent since 2011, the drop picked up steam in the years since the 2017 50/50 law passed.
Those who observe these issues recognize these trends as good news: take the fight out of divorce and family law, and false claims go away.
This chart is from Kentucky’s family court cases, cross-referenced with domestic violence cases 2015–2025.4
Similar trends are afoot in Arkansas. In 2021 that state enacted what is considered the strongest presumption of joint custody in the country, requiring clear and convincing evidence to deviate from 50/50 joint custody. In the three years since, divorce filings have dropped, the number of family court filings with orders of protections have dropped, along with other positive outcomes including paternity filings without support (mostly dads) increased, paternity filings with support (mostly moms) decreased.
Source: Arkansas Advocates for Parental Equality
Female homicide rates and equal parenting presumptions
Researchers in Spain5 studied that country’s outcomes after equal parenting presumption laws were passed in 2009, after which the rate at which parents shared time 50/50 after divorce went up 400%, but rates of intimate partner violence in those regions declined significantly during that same period when compared with the other 13 regions of Spain where mostly mothers gained primary parenting time:
50% decrease in physical abuse
69% decrease in psychological abuse
Female homicides during marriage also decreased significantly in Spanish states with 50/50 parenting.
What Kentucky Family Court judge Mica Wood says about magistrates’ hesitancy about 50/50 presumptions — and what they say now:
50/50 laws help close pay gaps. Data from Spain, the United States and Sweden
One more report of evidence that equal parenting laws correlate with lower intimate partner violence: in Arizona in 2010, a new statute required judges to order “maximum parenting time” to both parents, which was widely interpreted as 50/50 time, but also gave judges leeway to make exceptions—as do all passed and proposed equal parenting laws. Since then, researchers polled family court professionals (judges, lawyers, therapists, mediators) who overwhelmingly liked the law, said it was effective in mainstreaming 50/50 parenting schedules, and saw that it had a positive effect on children.6
These professionals reported that after the new policy was implemented, there was not more conflict between parents or increased litigation, though they did perceive a slight increase in allegations of domestic violence and child abuse—a half step above a neutral perception. There was no data on whether those allegations were substantiated. But again, these mostly pro-50/50 court professionals also saw overall less parental conflict after the law was in effect.
Those who study family law suggest that the uptick in Arizona domestic violence allegations could be attributable to false allegations in an effort to gain a legal upper hand in custody disputes where 50/50 is the presumption. There are also those who theorize that 50/50 presumptions clear courts of false claims and make room for courts to appropriately support actual abuse cases. The verdict is still out, though the 2018 paper on Arizona suggests that in the absence of more parent conflict, the increased abuse allegations are more likely of the false variety.
Child abuse rates and 50/50 laws
This seems to also be true when it comes to equal parenting and child violence. The National Parents Organization, the leading U.S. nonprofit advocating for equal parenting laws, assessed parenting guidelines in each of Ohio’s 88 counties for how likely they were to provide children with equal parenting time arrangements, giving them letter grades A through F. NPO then compared these ratings against substantiated incidents of mental, physical, and sexual child abuse.
Child abuse rates in counties that had an A or A- grade were half those with a D.
According to the report’s authors,
It could be that by reducing parental legal conflict over parenting time, courts are able to attend more closely to those cases that present significant risks of child maltreatment, stemming some of the harm to children. It could be, also, that lowering the conflict between the parents over parenting time reduces antagonism that spills over to the children. And, of course, part of the explanation could be that, where two parents are equally engaged in rearing their children, neither is as likely to feel overburdened and stressed out by child care responsibilities and both can serve as a watchful eye over the children’s well-being.
Edward Kruk, “Arguments for an Equal Parental Responsibility Presumption in Contested Child Custody,” American Journal of Family Therapy 40, no. 1 (2012): 33–55, https://doi.org/10.1080/01926187.2011.575344.
Matt Hale, “Kentucky’s Popular Joint-Custody Law Shows Why It’s the Most Effective at Helping Families,” Courier Journal (Louisville, KY), August 30, 2019, https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/08/30/kentuckys-joint-custody-law-leads-decline-family-court-cases/2158216001/.
Hale, “Kentucky’s Popular Joint-Custody Law.”
https://www.kycourts.gov/AOC/Information-and-Technology/Analytics/Pages/Caseload-Yearly-by-Category.aspx
Daniel Fernández-Kranz, Natalia Nollenberger, Jennifer Louise Roff, “Bargaining under Threats: The Effect of Joint Custody Laws on Intimate Partner Violence,” American Journal of Health Economics, May 2024 https://docs.iza.org/dp13810.pdf
“Shared Parenting and Child Abuse and Neglect: An Ohio Study,” National Parents Organization, accessed July 8, 2023. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e28a95cdc8bed16729b93de/t/63fd03169713e651626d8254/1677525782296/
The weirdly provocative introduction to this piece makes it impossible to actually assess it without the sense that the author has an agenda.