Publication
Columbia Law Review
Volume
124
Page
2153
Year
2024
Abstract
Boys and men in all racial and ethnic groups and across most socioeconomic groups are struggling on many fronts, including education, employment, physical and mental health, and social integration. In these areas and more, boys and men are much worse off than they were only a few decades ago. The crisis—which is concentrated among men without college degrees—is rooted in large-scale structural changes to the economy that have decimated jobs for this group and policy choices that emphasize incarceration while doing little to address economic inequality.
The decline in male well-being is not just a problem for boys and men. It is a problem for families. Men’s economic prospects have a profound impact on whether couples will commit to each other. Men without steady work—and with behaviors that often accompany unemployment, including a higher frequency of intimate partner violence—have trouble sustaining long-term relationships, and many do not marry. They often have children, but once romantic relationships end, unmarried men tend to drift away from the family. Many fathers want a larger role in their children’s lives, but this is possible only if they can strengthen their relationship with mothers. Many mothers also want fathers to be more involved, but they are concerned about issues fathers bring to the family. And children want a relationship with both parents.
Family law is part of the problem, contributing to the familial isolation of men without college degrees. In recent decades, family law has undergone a significant transformation, but this transformation primarily benefits married couples. The legal system now seeks to create “postdivorce families”—that is, families in which both parents are cooperative, active caregivers, notwithstanding the end of the parents’ romantic relationship. To this end, custody laws encourage shared parenting, and family courts offer alternative dispute resolution processes, counseling, and other assistance that strengthen fathers’ active membership in the family. But men facing economic precarity are unlikely to be married and thus need not go to court when a romantic relationship ends. Accordingly, these men do not benefit from this transformation in custody rules and processes, and they are unlikely to access the supportive services. The child support system makes things worse by imposing unrealistic orders on low-income fathers that alienate men from their families. And the family regulation system, also known as the child welfare system, treats these fathers as incompetent caregivers or, even worse, as threats.
Family law may relegate men in crisis to the periphery of family life, but it can also help bring them back. The goal is not to restore men’s patriarchal authority but rather to extend the model of cooperative parenting to more families. To this end, this Essay proposes far-reaching reforms to custody rules and processes, child support, and family regulation. In each of these problematic areas of family law, the proposed reforms give families greater autonomy in shaping agreements about family relationships, support to make these bargains workable, and opportunities for men to be active fathers.
Recommended Citation
June Carbone & Clare Huntington, Fatherhood, Family Law, and the Crisis of Boys and Men, 124 Columbia Law Review 2153 (2024)
