Public research vault

The empirical foundation, in full daylight.

Ghost Dads Media publishes its research methodology, limitations, and citations openly. Policy researchers, journalists, and legislators can verify the empirical backing before citing the work.

Primary source

The Ohio Father Study.

Sample

N = 46

Ohio fathers, unmarried and divorced cohorts.

Field period

2023

Single time point. 2025 reconciliation preserved in workbook.

Design

Descriptive

Ten-question instrument. UM/D coding scheme. Hypothesis-generating, not inferential.

Limitations — published in full

Stated plainly so they cannot be used to dismiss the work in bad faith.

Sample size

N = 46 fathers. Supports descriptive comparison and hypothesis generation, not population-scale inference. Read the study as a structured signal, not a final estimate.

Self-selection

Recruitment used a web link distributed through parent-advocacy networks, supplemented by a SurveyMonkey Target Audience panel. Fathers who complete a ten-question survey about family court likely over-represent those with strong views on the system.

Single jurisdiction

Instrument and sample are Ohio-only. Findings should not be extrapolated to other state family-court regimes without replication.

No intact-marriage control

Compares unmarried and divorced fathers but does not include a control arm of fathers in intact marriages, which would be required to isolate the effect of non-residential status from other family-structure variables.

Self-reported outcomes

Academic-achievement and behavior ratings are reported by the father, not pulled from school records. Independent linkage to district-level academic and disciplinary data is the natural next step.

Single time point

The 2023 field period captures one snapshot; longitudinal change is not measured. A 2025 reconciliation of the data is preserved in the project workbook.

Researcher-as-advocate

The author is both researcher and participant in Ohio family-court reform conversations. This dual role is disclosed so readers may weigh the analysis with full knowledge of the author's standpoint.

Replication protocol

Good-faith replication is welcome.

A faithful replication would: (1) hold the instrument and the UM/D coding scheme constant; (2) expand the sample through a stratified design covering all Ohio judicial districts — and, ideally, comparable counties in additional states; and (3) link self-reported academic and behavior outcomes to administrative school-record data with appropriate consent and IRB review. The author welcomes good-faith replication, critique, and extension.

The full survey instrument and the anonymized response file are available from the author on request.

Citations

The bibliography.

Ohio Revised Code § 3109.042
The current Ohio custody framework — best-interest standard without a shared-parenting presumption. The gap the proposed Equal Shared Parenting Act corrects.
Kentucky HB 528 (2018)
Enacted a rebuttable presumption of joint custody and equal parenting time. National reference point for reform outcomes.
West Virginia HB 4648 (2022)
Established a presumption of equal custodial allocation between fit parents, with statutory safety carve-outs.
Daly, M. & Wilson, M.
Foundational research on family-structure and child-safety differentials. Cited in Ghost Dads for the empirical baseline on non-residential parent dynamics.
The Ohio Father Study (Feerer, 2023)
The primary-source survey behind Ghost Dads. Full instrument and anonymized response file available from the author on request.