Shared Custody Tops 50% in Spain: Co-Parenting or Illusion?

Shared custody is imposed in more than half of divorces in 2025, but the debate over who really cares for the children opens an economic and gender gap

In 2025, for the first time in history, shared custody was agreed in more than half of divorce cases in Spain. The figure, published by El País in July 2026, marks a milestone in parental co-responsibility, but analysis of profiles and family dynamics reveals a more complex reality.

The Supreme Court ruling has led judges and notaries to impose this model even without guarantees that both parents will be equally involved. María Durán Febrer, a member of the Association of Women Jurists Themis, points out that in many shared custody arrangements requested by the father, care falls on the paternal grandmother or the new partner. The question arises whether legal co-responsibility translates into real co-responsibility.

Behind the figures there is an economic pattern. Those who defend shared custody tend to have medium-high incomes; economic capacity allows maintaining two households and managing logistics. On the other hand, when resources are scarce, the attribution of the family home favors the mother, and the father ends up out of the house. "Grotesque" situations are generated, such as the rotating use of the home, according to some analyses.

The gender gap is reconfigured: if before the mother assumed parenting and the father paid, now times are shared, but care - often feminized - is transferred to grandmothers. The advance towards formal equality clashes with the persistence of informal roles.

With these ingredients, shared custody will continue to grow, but the effective distribution of domestic burdens and the impact on the family home will be the next battlegrounds. No one has yet found the magic formula.