Divorce Plunged in Kentucky. Equal Custody for Fathers Is a Big Reason Why.
3rd October 2025
The Wall Street Journal.
Around the country, the fathers’ rights movement was gaining momentum. Dividing time and decision-making equally between parents, advocates argued, reduced children’s feelings of abandonment, promoted gender equality and lowered tensions between feuding couples.
“There is no law that affects more people other than taxes or traffic,” said Matt Hale, vice chair of the National Parents Organization, an advocacy group formerly known as Fathers and Families. “Giving kids equal access to both their parents is just common sense.” Dads like Hale and Holdsworth found a sympathetic ear in lawmakers including Jason Nemes, a Kentucky state representative whose own father was his primary guardian after his parents divorced.
In 2018, Kentucky became the first state to pass a law making equally shared custody the default arrangement in divorces and separations. Four other states—Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida and Missouri—have since passed their own versions of Kentucky’s custody bill. Around 20 more are considering or close to passing similar laws, according to an analysis by the National Parents Organization.
The law has become a model for other states, not least because Kentucky’s divorce rate has plummeted. Between 2016 and 2023 it fell 25%, compared with a nationwide decline of 18%, according to an analysis by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University.
Hale calls the drop in the divorce rate an unintended bonus of the custody law. He suggested that parents are increasingly likely to stay together because they realize they’ll be in regular touch regardless, so “they might as well work it out.” He added that he’s heard stories of couples who decided not to break up because of the presumption of shared custody, and years later are glad they stayed together.
Plus women realized that they could no longer divorce a husband and take both the kids and (accordingly) generous “child support”.