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Notes -
OTOH, this says that, in CA, "Both parents agree in 51% of cases that one parent should become the custodial parent." So, if fathers are agreeing that the mother should get sole custody, even if that means they will be paying more in child support (which they will, given the formula used in CA), and despite the fact that CA law requires joint custody as the default, where is the injustice in those payments?
It may well be the right policy! But it's a different claim.
And there's at least the potential for injustice. Trivially, even contested court case ones still favor sole-mother over sole-father custody ("5 out of 6" by your link), and maybe that's reflects some correct (if possibly sexist) policy, but it'd also look pretty similar if a lot of fathers weren't getting a fair shake, or where ostensibly 'neutral' standards end up making it unlikely for a father to be able to achieve all the necessary hoops. Even parents agreeing on custody doesn't necessarily avoid problems of coercive 'agreement', especially given the normal bail-and-plea-bargain arguments about the costs of the justice system are, if anything, far stronger here.
Of course there is potential for injustice. It certainly would not surprise me to find that there are unequal outcomes. But note how far we are from OP's original claim.
But if in half those cases (3/6) the mother has custody because the parents agreed thereto, that means that in 2/3 of the cases mothers get custody, rather than in 1.5/3, were contested cases evenly decided. Of course, we don't know for sure what pct of agreed cases give custody to the mother, but it is probably very high. So, again, we seem to be far from OP's original claim.
*Note that the headline in think in that link is: "Monthly Child Support Payments Average $430 per Month in 2010." This says that the average amount paid in 2017 was $6,760 per year, which does tend to undermine OP's claim that men are being impoverished.
What claim do you think the OP's making that this doesn't hit? Because 'it's only financially ruinous for people below some very common income level' doesn't seem hugely incompatible with his statements
((Kulak does miss the statutory maximum for child support/alimony in some states, so there are some limits to what extent family court can garnish wages, but... most states set them extremely high.))
Given that that number is a an average. and averages are skewed by large numbers at the high end, there is no evidence that it is financially ruinous for anyone. It might be, but what I said it true: that the data** tends** to undermine his claim. That is a very mild claim, after all.
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Sorry for the "argument in depth" nit-picking, but I think we should be cautious about that stat on "agreements". Much more so than regular contracts, family court has a lot of room for coercive behavior that won't show up in a court record. "If we have to go to court, I'll say you hit me." All the "children need their mother" social bullying. The dynamic where the parent who works less handles more of the scheduling for things like playdates and doctors appointments. I know of one example where the wife only filed for divorce after a year long campaign of meticulous planning and coordination so she could drop a Tunguska-tier mindfuck on the guy and get away with everything while he was reeling in the psychological wreckage. That one would count as an "agreement" in the stats.
I suspect the number for "percent who feel like they came to a mutually fair deal" would be lower.
Well, that might be true, but that sounds like a very different claim than the one that OP seemed to be making.
And highwaymen only shoot their victim 1% of the time... the rest of the time they reach and agreement to surrender their valuables.
The threat of the court and violence fundamentally makes all of these agreements coercive... Just because the guy with the gun (the government) is standing in the corner and not saying anything doesn't mean he isn't the most important factor in the outcome
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Do they agree because they know they will lose a court battle? Because if so (and I genuinely do not know), then your caveat is fully generalisable and would equally apply to, e.g. people railed by having plea bargains pushed on them.
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