Impact of Legal Custody Status on Fathers' Parenting Postdivorce

While joint custody has received remarkable legislative recognition in a very short period, the research on the arrangement is still very limited. Using a sample drawn from court records, the study presented in this paper compares the parenting one year after divorce of 28 joint-custodial fathers with 54 noncustodial fathers. The indicators offathers' involvement used in this study assess both dimensions typically used to distinguish joint custody: (a) contact and activities with the children and (b) shared responsibility and decision making. Using regression analyses all three indicators of paternal involvement showed jointcustody fathers to be more involved in parenting postdivorce than are noncustodial fathers.