[sheepmullet]

> Women are at a systematic disadvantage in this scenario.

What? There is a strong systematic bias in favour of single women.

A man who is expected to work 60 hour weeks is much less likely to get custody of his kids.

A man who takes a significant pay cut so he can spend more time with his kids can also get charged by the courts for being a dead-beat dad etc.

[dota_fanatic]

> A man who is expected to work 60 hour weeks is much less likely to get custody of his kids.

We're not comparing custody results, here. We're comparing a full custody woman against a full custody man, across all cultures, not whatever intuition you have about custody battles (in the US, seemingly)?

After doing a bit of reading[1], it's not even clear that any of your statements are true.

"In other words, 91 percent of child custody after divorce is decided with no interference from the family court system. How can there be a bias toward mothers when fewer than 4 percent of custody decisions are made by the Family Court?

What do these statistics tell us?

1. Fathers are less involved in their children's care during the marriage.

2. Fathers are less involved in their children's lives after divorce.

3. Mothers gain custody because the vast majority of fathers choose to give them custody.

4. There is no Family Court bias in favor of mothers because very few fathers seek custody during divorce."

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-meyer/dispelling-the-myt...

[AlisdairO]

> "In other words, 91 percent of child custody after divorce is decided with no interference from the family court system. How can there be a bias toward mothers when fewer than 4 percent of custody decisions are made by the Family Court?

I live in the UK, so I can't comment on how things are in the US, but here it's so completely understood that men won't get the kids that it's relatively rare to try. The only person I know who did (who had a partner who was quite plainly unsuitable to be a parent) still lost out. In such an environment, why would it be surprising that men don't pursue custody?

Further, if the argument goes that mothers spend more time with their children, and therefore ought in general to be more likely to get custody, I don't necessarily argue against that. What I don't understand is why it's okay to say 'Mothers typically spend more time/attention on their children, therefore it's natural that they (on average) should get custody', but it's not okay to say 'Fathers typically spend more time/attention on their careers, therefore it's natural that they (on average) earn more money'.