- Steven T. Cook and Patricia Brown
- May 2006
- CSPR-03-05-T3A
- Link to Cook-Brown-Task3-2006 (PDF)
In Wisconsin the policy environment has been increasing the pressure on courts to use shared placement arrangements. This culminated in new legislation in May 2000 that directed courts to maximize the time the children spent with both parents. A previous report (Cancian, Cassetty, Cook, and Meyer, 2002: http://www.irp.wisc.edu/research1/childsup/cspolicy/pdfs/placeoutcomes.pdf ) found that the use of shared placement in divorce cases had more than doubled even before this legislation went into effect (from 11.4 percent in the early 1990s to 23 percent in the late 1990s) with accompanying reductions in the use of mother sole placement. This report examines several questions: Has the trend toward equal shared placement continued in the aftermath of this legislation? Has the use of shared placement increased in paternity cases as it has in divorce cases? What parental characteristics are associated with the use of shared placement?
Categories
Child Support, Child Support Policy Research, Custody & Placement, Family & Partnering
Tags
Fathers, Qualitative Research, Random Assignment Evaluations