Divorce occurs in both industrialized and non-industrialized cultures (Anderson 2011). Following this dissolution, the decision of who receives custody may become an issue for parents and the state. In industrialized nations, women are much more likely to be granted full custody of children (Anderson 2011). For example, in the United States, one study found that the majority of single-parent households (84%) were headed by mothers (Grall 2007). In some non-industrialized nations, the same child custody pattern occurs as well. For example, in the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer tribe, divorce is common, and when it occurs, the majority of the children live with the mother (Marlowe 2010). However, data from across 45 societies found 17.8% and 20.0% of the time children resided with mothers and fathers, respectively. From this same sample, 53.3% of those who received custody of the children were granted custody based upon a variety of factors (Frayser 1985). Factors that may play a role in who...
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Joel Wade, T., Salerno, K., Moran, J. (2018). Child Custody. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2018-1
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