Am J Psychiatry 1982; 139:62-66
Copyright © 1982 by American Psychiatric Association
Does joint custody work? A first look at outcome data of relitigation
FW Ilfeld Jr, HZ Ilfeld and JR Alexander
Joint custody, with both divorced parents sharing childrearing functions,
is a recent and controversial phenomenon. To the authors' knowledge there
have been no published quantitative outcome studies establishing its
efficacy. The authors present data on 414 consecutive custody cases in a
Los Angeles court over a 2-year period, comparing relitigation rates
(indicative of postdivorce parental conflict) of exclusive and joint
custody. In those cases which were returns to court, the proportion of
relitigation for joint custody families was one-half that of exclusive
custody families, suggesting that joint custody is a more beneficial
arrangement in terms of reduced parental conflict.
