Abstract
Despite the increasing use of e-mediated services to settle divorce, research on its effectiveness is limited. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of an asynchronous e-supported tool to mediate divorces in the Netherlands. In order to do so, we rely on (a) the number of agreements reached and (objective) (b) with the help of a survey, we ask men and women about their perceptions of justice when involved in an e-mediated divorce (subjective). Results show that in more than 75% of the cases parties reach an agreement. Furthermore, findings indicate that both Dutch men and women evaluate e-supported divorce mediation favorably with high levels of perceived distributive, procedural, interpersonal as well as informational justice. Although men and women do not differ regarding perceptions of distributive and informational justice, women perceive significantly more procedural and interpersonal justice than men. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
. Introduction
Divorce has become a normative life event for many families in Western society, not the least because of its frequency (Hughes & Kirby, 2000). Whereas in Australia at least one out of five marriages ends in divorce (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007), in the Netherlands one out of three marriages dissolves (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2010). In the United States, 50% to two-thirds of all first marriages are disrupted by separation or divorce (Kreider & Fields, 2001).
During the past few decades, many Western countries implemented a no-fault legislation (the assumption of fault does not have to reside any longer with one of the partners) together with the so called ‘child’s best interest’ standard in deciding on post-divorce arrangements (Baitar et al., 2012 and Beck and Sales, 2001). Reason to do this was based on the observation that post-divorce disagreements may be very costly for the parents but particularly damaging to the children (Cashmore, 2011).
Such developments facilitated in the Netherlands the implementation of the Promotion of Continued Parenting and Proper Divorce Act, which took effect on March 1st, 2009. Under this Act, it is compulsory for divorcing couples with minor children to draw up a parenting plan which contains agreements in three key areas (division of care and parenting duties, child maintenance, and exchange of information on important issues) and to hand this over to a judge. During this process, parties usually rely on a divorce mediator.
During divorce mediation a neutral third party accepted by both disputants helps parties to discuss issues and fosters mutual understanding of the underlying interests (Kressel, 2006). The mediator has no power to prescribe agreements or outcomes (Wall, Stark, & Standifer, 2001). Rather, the mediator helps the parties to determine what they believe is the best solution for themselves and their children (Goldman et al., 2008). This open and consensual approach makes it more likely to find a mutual acceptable agreement and/or to promote continuity in relations. This may be very important for divorces as divorces not only require legal solutions, but also need solutions on a personal level (recognition, respect, understanding of feelings and thoughts, etc.), something arbitration fails to impact.
In addition to traditional face-to-face mediations, contemporary mediation service providers offer e-supported mediation, going from fully e-supported mediations to mediations which are partly computerized and partly face-to-face (hybrid types). Though increasingly used, empirical research on e-supported divorce mediations is limited and few rigorous tests exist of its effectiveness or its effects on the parties involved; this, in contrast to the vast amount of literature on electronic negotiations (Citera et al., 2005 and Friedman et al., 2004) and/or online communication (Valley et al., 1998 and Walther et al., 2005).
In this article, we aim to explore the effectiveness of e-supported divorce mediation. To this end, we do not only rely on the number of agreements reached (objective), but also explore how men and women (who communicate in an asynchronous way to arrange their divorce) evaluate their mediation in terms of distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice (subjective). To test our hypotheses, we ask men and women who made use of an asynchronous online tool to mediate their divorce in the Netherlands, to fill out a survey as soon as they finish their mediation sessions.
The paper is structured as follows: First, we provide the reader with a definition of e-supported mediation. Then, we refer to literature and research on the effects of e-supported communication, its implications for mediation and describe the e-supported mediation tool used in this study. In a subsequent section, we draw upon gender literature as well as justice literature to develop predictions about how men and women may differ in their perceptions of mediation effectiveness. After describing the methods and measurements used to obtain our data, results are discussed in greater depth. Finally, we discuss the practical and theoretical contributions of our study as well as suggestions for future research
7. Conclusion
For a long time, people have considered e-supported communication as inferior to face-to-face communication. The strength of the present research – based on data from the field-, is to demonstrate that when parties need to arrange a divorce, the use of asynchronous e-supported communication can be effective. These findings are reflected by the high settlement rates as well as high levels of perceived justice. Furthermore, our findings show that men and women experience asynchronous e-supported mediation in a different way. For mediation research, it is time to move forward with structured research programs in which researchers differentiate between the effects of different types of (e-supported) mediation, rely on actual mediations as well as lab experiments and try to investigate their effects on the parties involved.
