Child custody after divorce or separation or among never-married parents is a complicated issue that has significant impact on society, both parents and the children involved. Substantial biases in the legal system, including race, income and sexual orientation, determine which parent gets custody. Which parent gets physical and legal custody has economic and sociological ramifications that can affect the child's upbringing. A Yale University report states that single mothers are much more likely to raise their children in poverty and to receive welfare benefits, which is even more strongly the case when mothers are racial minorities.
Gender Bias
In the United States, the court system is strongly biased toward women in child custody cases. A study led by Judith A. Seltzer at the California Center for Population Research at the University of California at Los Angeles reported that 57 percent of divorcing couples had custody arrangements in which the mother had sole legal and physical custody, meaning that the children lived with her exclusively and she was solely responsible for all aspects of their care. Mothers are the default primary custodial parent, usually without investigation into the parental fitness of both parents. Although fathers with sole custody are in the minority, they are still expected to pay child support.
Poverty
Children who live with custodial mothers are significantly more likely to grow up in poverty. A study by Maria Cancian and Daniel R. Meyer at the School of Social Work and Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin at Madison reported that maternal custody households were much more likely to have low incomes, while paternal custody households had high incomes. Non-custodial fathers are less likely to consistently pay child support because they cannot see how the money is spent and distrust the child's mother. This lack of child support is a large contributing factor to the poverty rate in female-headed households.
Gay And Lesbian
Gay and lesbian parents also face biases in child custody. Because the vast majority of the United States does not recognize gay partnerships, the court system does not have protocol for handling child custody cases when homosexual relationships break up. According to the American Bar Association, many child custody cases involving a homosexual parent have a heterosexual person as the other parent. Courts heavily favor the heterosexual parent in determining child custody. However, the ABA reports that this is improving as homosexual relationships gain greater acceptance in society.
