BOSTON – When courts decide which parent gets custody in a divorce or separation, the emotional stability of the mother and the criminal record – or lack thereof – of the father appear to matter most, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
Mothers are about 4-5 times more likely to receive sole custody when the father has a history of arrests. Fathers, in contrast, are nearly 10 times more likely to be granted custody if the mother has been involved with family services, found Dr. Jonathan M. Raub and his colleagues from the Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston.
Previous studies of the factors influencing custody decision have been qualitative. The authors of the current study, outlined in a poster presentation, wanted to paint a quantitative picture of specific variables that predict current custody and the recommendations of family service providers.
They reviewed 183 charts from the Middlesex County (Mass.) Probate and Family Court clinic. The records included items from intake questionnaires and clinic recommendations that were coded for outcome variables such as custody prior to clinic evaluation, and predictor variables specific to the biological parents, including factors such race/ethnicity, income, education level, history of outpatient mental health treatment and psychiatric hospitalizations, substance use, arrest history, and history of family services contact. Interparental hostility characterized by both parents also was a predictor variable.
The authors hypothesized that sole custody awards would be negatively correlated with low income, lack of education, arrest history, family service involvement, and mental health treatment/hospitalization. They also postulated that the flip side would be true – that sole custody would positively correlate with higher income and education levels.
Furthermore, they further predicted that having at least one child with a history of mental health problems would be associated with a lower likelihood that the father would get sole custody. In addition, the researchers predicted that joint custody would be more likely when parents reported communicating with each other.
In multiple logistic regression analysis, they found the factors that mitigated against the mother’s sole custody were history of psychiatric hospitalizations (odds ratio, 0.24), her involvement with family services (OR, 0.25 for current custody status; 0.35 for recommendation of sole custody), annual income below $20,000 (0.28), father’s lower education level (0.35), and history of substance use (0.37). In contrast, mothers were more likely to have sole custody at the time of evaluation if the father has an arrest record (5.7) and to be recommended for sole custody if the father previously had been arrested (4.53).
Factors counting against the fathers’ chance of sole custody were his arrest history (OR, 0.31 for current custody; 0.37 for recommendation of sole custody), lower education level (0.35), and having a child treated for mental health issues (0.28 for current custody; 0.36 for recommended). Fathers were more likely to be (or be recommended as) the sole custodial parent if the mother had involvement with family services (9.82 current, 3.46 recommended), and if the mother had low income (8.18).
"These results suggest that emotional stability appears to be more relevant for mothers and a criminal record more relevant for fathers in both pre-evaluation custody arrangements and court clinic recommendations," wrote the investigators, who also are affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, both in Boston.
The study was supported by the Cambridge Health Alliance. The authors reported that they had no relevant conflicts of interest.
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