Joint custody and shared parenting: Analysis of practices in the Civil Court of Rome

The current research examined the question of custody of children in divorced families in Italy. This study proposed to evaluate if changes occurred after introduction of the Law 54/2006 in March 2006 about shared custody, in both the sentences of judicial divorce in Ordinary Court of Rome, and the choices of the parents who divorce by mutual consent in the same Court. The archival research examined 100 judgments of judicial divorce (50 before the Law 54/2006 -2005- and 50 after the Law 54/2006 -2007- ) and 100 judgments of divorce by mutual consent (by the same procedure). The instrument employed was a schedule of content analysis. The data was examined with frequencies analysis and statistic tests (χ2 test and ANOVA). Consistent with assumptions of the authors, results shown that after Law 54/2006 there was significant changes in the child custody. Research and clinical implication are discussed.