Is Michigan a mother or a father state? Decisions pertaining to divorce, such as child custody, would have favored the wife decades ago. Even if the courts would argue that it isn’t truly happening that way, fathers would assume the custody case will not go their way.
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Although there is some bias present, we have made great progress in eliminating it from judicial decisions. The best interest of the child is now a bigger factor in judicial decisions. The state no longer bases its decisions on who is wearing the skirt, however there may still be parental slander.
Perceptions Catching Up With Facts
Legal and physical custody are decided by family law courts based on the child’s best interests. The parent who has taken on greater responsibility for the child’s upbringing is likely to have an edge as they consider a variety of factors to determine what is in the child’s best interests. Even if circumstances are changing, traditionally, women have been more responsible for raising children.
It may not be fair to say of courts being gender-biased, considering more than half of the custody cases are not even decided by the courts.
Over 90% of child custody disputes were settled by the parents without the help of the family court, according to statistics on child custody. In other words, the judge only needed to approve the order based on the parents’ written agreement. The reality is most of the time, the court isn’t even deciding who gets custody.
In just over half of these child custody disputes in the U.S. the mother is mutually agreed upon by the parents to be the children’s custodial parent. 29 percent of these choices were reached without the assistance of a mediator or the court, 11 percent necessitated mediation, and 5 percent were reached following a careful custody analysis.
Only 4 percent of child custody cases were actually resolved in court.
According to some estimates, up to 40% of women may earn more than their partners, it is becoming more and more common for women to earn more money than their spouses.
The traditional view of alimony is that the guy should pay, and this is typically still the case today. Although precise figures are lacking, alimony is paid by considerably more men than it is by women. In reality, it is still quite uncommon for a woman to be the ex-spouse making alimony payments.
However, it is becoming more typical for males to receive alimony. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 7,000 American men getting alimony in 1998 and 13,000 in 2008.
Data is telling us gender is not really an issue in the state of Michigan or in the other states.
The Courts Are Gender Neutral
The courts in Michigan or in any other state, is neither a mother or father state in as far as data on alimony or child custody is concerned. The data is telling us that the courts are not even deciding on these cases since it is resolved by parents among themselves.
If you are seeking divorce today, your goal should be to avoid a trial. About 98% of divorce cases are actually settled out of court. It’s best to settle your dispute outside of court than to go down the path of litigation and fighting. If there is a dispute over custody and you are the father, you have rights, and whatever is decided regarding custody and parenting time should be agreed upon by both you and the mother. Parenting time and custody arrangements should be made by the parents, not the court system.
Even though 90% of the child custody cases were resolved out of court, 79.9% of those out of court agreements have chosen mothers to be custodial parents according to 2018 data. The data is actually lower than its 2014 statistics of 82.5% of mothers being chosen as custodial parents. If this trend continues, there’s a likelihood fathers might become a preferred custodial parent in the future. This is not the court’s choice but the mutual agreement of parents.
In Michigan, 51% of custody arrangements end up with mothers while 40% are joint custodies. 7% of the time, fathers can get custody. Note that most of these arrangements were decided among the parties themselves out of court.
We can no longer even speculate if courts are gender neutral considering only 4% of child custody cases are actually decided upon by the court. The courts are more focused on the child’s best interest than settling disputes between husbands and wives.
The Future’s Looking Good For Both Gender
So, we can already conclude that the court system has been mainly gender neutral so far within the limited number of cases it handles directly. It handles 2% of divorces cases and 4% of child custody cases.
So when we say women get awarded child custody 90% of the time, it simply means that during an out of court settlement both spouses agreed to have the mother become the custodial parent. It’s clear the court has not been involved in this decision. This will mean higher child support for fathers.
This is not really bleak on the part of fathers considering that in the U.S. 74.3% of custodial fathers have full-time jobs.
In terms of women becoming breadwinners, data shows we are getting there. 40% of households with married parents have women as breadwinners.
In the matter of alimony, we may not be there yet. Only 3% of spousal support arrangements in the U.S. are paid to ex-husbands. This is not really about gender-bias or the court favoring women, it is because women do not yet constitute the bulk of the primary caregivers and breadwinners of the country.
Although statistically only a small fraction of divorce and child custody cases eventually end up being decided by the court, it is important to remember the system has minimized gender bias in its determination and decision-making.
When you give both parents equal share in the outcomes of any divorce or child custody determinations, it forces shared parenting time to benefit not just parents but mostly the children.
In focusing on children rather than on the parents, it helps achieve the outcomes the statutes were designed to deliver. We’re not sure if the benefits can be attributed partially or entirely to the court system or the statutes but here is some good data.
[a] Co-parenting strengthens the bond between parents.
[b] 90% of parents concur that having shared custody had a major positive impact on both themselves and their children after a year.
[c] In a shared custody situation, infants and toddlers are 80% less likely to feel abandoned by a parent in the future.
[d] A child’s chances of being emotionally, physically, academically, and relationally successful are doubled when both parents share parenting time.
[e] By preventing injustice and litigation, shared parenting cuts the likelihood of parental conflict by 80%.
[f] Co-parenting increases both the mother’s and the father’s affection in equal measure.
[g] When each parent got at least 35% of the visitation time, children between the ages of 0 and 4 exhibited significant benefits.
The courts more particularly, the family courts in Michigan based most of their decisions on a set of factors applied to divorce and child custody as prescribed by statutes.
Safe to say Michigan is neither a mother or a father state.
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Goldman & Associates Law Firm is here to with information about Child Custody and Divorce in the State of Michigan.