How Often Do Fathers Get 50/50 Custody in Illinois?

There is no official Illinois statistic for how often fathers get 50/50 parenting time. No state court or agency tracks that number. So anyone quoting you a precise percentage is guessing or repeating a vendor’s marketing survey. What the law does say is clearer and more useful. Illinois presumes both parents are fit, has no rule for or against equal parenting time, and decides every case on the child’s best interests. That means an involved father can absolutely get 50/50.

This article covers why that statistic doesn’t exist, whether Illinois law actually favors mothers, how a judge decides parenting time, what the national trend looks like, and — most importantly — what actually moves your odds toward an equal schedule.

Is there an official number for how often dads get 50/50 in Illinois?

No. No Illinois government source publishes custody-outcome or parenting-time statistics broken down by parent. This isn’t an oversight you can work around — it’s a documented gap.

The state agencies that keep divorce data track other things entirely. The Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts counts case filings, dispositions, and how fast cases clear — not who got how many overnights. The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, in its most recent 2022 review of child support guidelines, analyzed case files for things like income and support deviations — again, not parenting time.

So when you see an Illinois-specific figure floating around, understand where it comes from. The common one is that “fathers get about 23% of parenting time.” That number traces back to a 2018 survey run by a custody-software company, not a court-record study. It tells you nothing reliable about what a DuPage County judge will do in your case. The honest answer to “how often” is that the useful question isn’t a statewide average — it’s how the decision actually gets made for you.

Does Illinois law favor mothers over fathers?

No. Illinois law contains no maternal preference and no presumption for or against equal parenting time. The statute is explicit: it is presumed both parents are fit (750 ILCS 5/602.7(b)).

This is the piece most fathers get wrong walking in the door. The old stereotype — that courts hand kids to mom and give dad every other weekend — describes a legal world that no longer exists in Illinois. In 2016, a rewrite of the law (Public Act 99-90) even scrapped the words “custody” and “visitation.” The law now speaks in terms of parenting time and significant decision-making responsibilities — decisions about things like education, health, and religion. It starts both parents on equal footing.

A judge cannot dock your parenting time because you’re the father. In fact, the law says the court shall not restrict a parent’s time at all unless it finds that your time with the child would seriously endanger the child’s physical, mental, moral, or emotional health. It must find this by a preponderance of the evidence — meaning more likely than not. That’s a high bar, and it applies to both parents identically. You don’t start behind. You start even.

So how does an Illinois court actually decide parenting time?

The court allocates parenting time according to one standard: the best interests of the child (750 ILCS 5/602.7(a)). There’s no formula and no gender thumb on the scale — the judge weighs a list of specific factors against the facts of your family.

If you and the other parent agree, you submit a written parenting plan and the court generally approves it. If you don’t agree, the judge decides after weighing the statutory best-interest factors, which include (602.7):

• The wishes of each parent seeking parenting time
• The child’s wishes, considering maturity and ability to express reasoned, independent preferences
• The amount of time each parent spent performing caretaking functions during the 24 months before the petition was filed, or since birth if the child is under two
• Any prior agreement or course of conduct between the parents regarding caretaking
• The child’s interaction and relationship with parents, siblings, and other people who may significantly affect the child’s best interests
• The child’s adjustment to home, school, and community
• The mental and physical health of everyone involved
• The child’s needs
• The distance between the parents’ homes, transportation costs and difficulty, everyone’s daily schedules, and the parents’ ability to cooperate with the arrangement
• Whether a restriction on parenting time is appropriate
• Physical violence or threats of physical violence by a parent against the child or another member of the child’s household
• Each parent’s willingness and ability to put the child’s needs ahead of their own
• Each parent’s willingness and ability to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship between the child and the other parent
• Abuse against the child or another member of the child’s household
• Whether a parent or someone living with a parent is a convicted sex offender, including the nature of the offense and successful treatment
• The terms of a parent’s military family-care plan when the parent is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces being deployed
• Any other factor the court expressly finds relevant

Notice what’s driving this list: conduct, not gender. The law even states directly that the court shall not consider a parent’s conduct that doesn’t affect their relationship with the child. The reason no average predicts your outcome is that your case is decided on your involvement — which is a variable you control.

Are courts actually granting 50/50 more often than they used to?

Yes — the long-term direction is strongly toward shared parenting, though the precise Illinois numbers aren’t published. The national and court-record research all points the same way.

Because Illinois doesn’t track this, researchers rely on other data. Wisconsin keeps the leading long-term court-record series in the country. There, equal (50/50) shared physical custody grew from 2% of divorce cases in the early 1980s to 6% in the early 1990s to 35% by 2010. Add in unequal shared arrangements and fully half of all Wisconsin divorce cases in 2010 resulted in some form of shared physical custody.

Nationally, the trend runs the same direction: court-ordered shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled, from 13% of divorces before 1985 to 34% of divorces in 2010–2014. And in the flagship peer-reviewed study of the shift, the share of mothers granted sole physical custody fell substantially between 1988 and 2008 while shared custody rose dramatically.

Two honest caveats. This is Wisconsin and national data, not Illinois — treat it as the direction of travel, not a prediction. And these measures aren’t all pure overnight-for-overnight 50/50 counts; the federal figure, for example, that 30.6% of noncustodial parents have some form of joint custody, lumps together legal and physical arrangements. The takeaway isn’t a guarantee — it’s that shared parenting has gone from rare to routine, and an engaged father asking for it today is asking for something courts grant all the time.

What actually makes a father more likely to get 50/50 in Illinois?

The single biggest factor is demonstrated, hands-on involvement in your child’s life. Several of the strongest levers are things you can act on starting now. The best-interest factors reward specific, provable conduct, not good intentions.

• Be the parent who does the caretaking. The court looks hard at how much caretaking each parent did in the 24 months before filing — the nutrition, the bedtimes, the sick days, the school communication, the transportation. If you’re doing these things, keep doing them, and keep a record. If you’ve drifted, start now; the clock is running. 
• Cooperate and support the other parent’s relationship with the kids. Two separate factors reward a parent’s willingness to cooperate and to encourage a close relationship between the child and the other parent. The father who badmouths mom to the kids hands the other side an argument. The one who supports the relationship strengthens his own case for equal time. 
• Make 50/50 logistically realistic. The court weighs the distance between homes, transportation, and each parent’s schedule. Living close to your child’s school and the other parent, and having a work schedule that genuinely allows equal time, makes an equal arrangement easy for a judge to order. 
• Put the child’s needs ahead of the fight. A parent’s willingness to prioritize the child over their own preferences is an explicit factor. Judges see a lot of parents using kids as leverage; don’t be that parent.. 
• Stay clear of anything that looks like endangerment. The only thing that lets a court restrict your time is serious endangerment to the child. Keep your conduct — substance use, conflict, exposure of the kids to hostility — well clear of that line. 

None of these is about being a father or a mother. They’re about being the kind of parent the statute is built to protect.

What should I do next if I want equal parenting time?

Three things, starting now:

• Keep doing the parenting — and document it. Save the calendar of who handled pickups, appointments, activities, and overnights. The 24-month caretaking window is one of the most powerful factors in your favor, and it’s evidence, not argument. 
• Don’t make a move you can’t undo without advice. Moving out of the family home or relocating with the kids can reshape the whole case. In DuPage County, moving the children more than 25 miles even within Illinois can legally count as a “relocation” with its own requirements. Talk to a lawyer before you change the living situation. 
• Get your specific facts in front of an attorney. A statewide average can’t tell you your odds. A lawyer who knows how DuPage judges apply the best-interest factors to a case like yours can. 

That case-specific read is exactly what a statistic can’t give you. And where 50/50 is contested, it can come down to how well your case is presented in front of a judge.

That’s where Lafata Law works. Based in DuPage County, attorneys Megan Lafata and Tom Elsner are both graduates of Northern Illinois University College of Law and each spent years as DuPage County prosecutors, trying over 100 cases to verdict before building their divorce practice. Contested parenting-time cases are decided on evidence and courtroom advocacy — proving the caretaking, meeting the best-interest factors, and holding the line if the other side pushes for less than equal time. That trial background is directly relevant when a father’s parenting time isn’t going to be handed over by agreement and has to be won in front of the court.

If you’re a father trying to secure equal time with your kids in DuPage County or the surrounding area, you can reach Lafata Law at lafatalaw.com to talk through the specifics of your situation.

This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Parenting-time outcomes depend on the specific facts of each case. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed Illinois attorney.