--- title: Custody: Joint Custody On the Rise, Maternal Custody Plummets description: Custody to moms only may soon be a thing of the past canonical: https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-22T21:30:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:21.079Z og:title: Joint Custody is on the Rise, Maternal Custody May Soon Be a Thing of the Past og:description: Custody to moms only may soon be a thing of the past og:url: https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Joint Custody is on the Rise, Maternal Custody May Soon Be a Thing of the Past twitter:description: Custody to moms only may soon be a thing of the past twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Divorce: Shared Custody of Kids is on the Rise  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent May 22, 2014 9:30 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent May 22, 2014 9:30 PM UTC Fewer mothers than ever are being given sole custody of their children as shared custody is on the rise. A new study of Wisconsin Court Records published in [_Demography_ ](http://www.springer.com/about+springer/media/springer+select?SGWID=0-11001-6-1465556-0)shows that from 1988 to 2008, the percentage of mothers who were awarded sole custody of their kids plummeted from 80% to 42%, but that was accompanied by a steep rise in joint custody arrangements. Over the same period of time, equal shared custody rose from 5% to 27% and unequal shared custody rose from 3% to 18%. Father-only custody stayed roughly the same the whole time, hovering around 10%. The study doesn’t cover kids who are born into single-parent households, just households that have gone through a divorce, which is why it might seem a bit misleading– [45% of American babies ](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarried-childbearing.htm)are born to unmarried mothers, but those custody arrangements aren’t studied here. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/"},"headline":"Divorce: Shared Custody of Kids is on the Rise","datePublished":"2014-05-22T21:30:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:21.079Z","description":"Custody to moms only may soon be a thing of the past","url":"https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/","keywords":["Living","Mothers","Marriage","Divorce","Family","fathers","Parenthood"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/109460/divorce-shared-custody-of-kids-is-on-the-rise/","name":"Divorce: Shared Custody of Kids is on the Rise"}}]}] ```