Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T14:48:10.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intergenerational transfers and the cost of allomothering in traditional societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2010

Karen L. Kramer
Karen L. Kramer
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The question of why helpers help is debated in the cooperative breeding literature. Recent reevaluations of inclusive fitness theory have important implications for traditional populations in which the provisioning of young occurs in the context of intergenerational transfers. These transfers link older and younger generations in an economic relationship that both minimizes the demand for help and the cost of helping.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 30 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bliege Bird, R. & Bird, D. (2002) Constraints of knowing or constraints of growing? Fishing and collecting by the children of Mer. Human Nature 13:239–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blurton Jones, N., Hawkes, K. & O'Connell, J. (1989) Measuring and modeling costs of children in two foraging societies: Implications for schedule of reproduction. In: Comparative socioecology. The behavorial ecology of humans and other mammals, ed. Standen, V. & Foley, R., pp. 367–90. Blackwell Scientific.Google Scholar
Blurton Jones, N., Hawkes, K. & O'Connell, J. (1997) Why do Hadza children forage? In: Uniting psychology and biology: Integrative perspectives on human development, ed. Segal, N., Weisfeld, G. E. & Weisfeld, C. C., pp. 164–83. American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Cain, M. (1977) The economic activities of children in a village in Bangladesh. Population and Development Review 3:201–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutton-Brock, T. H. (2002) Breeding together: Kin selection and mutualism in cooperative vertebrates. Science 296:69–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Waal, F. B. M. (2008) Putting the altruism back into altruism: The evolution of empathy. Annual Review of Psychology 59:279–300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dyson, T. & Murphy, M. (1985) The onset of fertility transition. Population and Development Review 11:399–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flinn, M. V. (1988) Parent-offspring interactions in a Caribbean village: Daughter guarding. In: Human reproductive behavior: A Darwinian perspective, ed. Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Turke, P., pp. 189–200. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F. & Blurton Jones, N.G. (1989) Hardworking Hadza grandmothers. In: Comparative socioecology: The behavioural ecology of humans and other mammals, ed. Standen, V. & Foley, R. A., pp. 341–66. Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hawkes, K., O'Connell, J. F. & Blurton Jones, N. G. (1997) Hadza women's time allocation, offspring provisioning and the evolution of long postmenopausal life spans. Current Anthropology 38:551–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkes, K. & Paine, R. R., eds. (2006) The evolution of human life histories. School of American Research.Google Scholar
Kaplan, H. (1994) Evolutionary and wealth flows theories of fertility: Empirical tests and new models. Population and Development Review 20(1):753–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, K. L. (2004) Reconsidering the cost of childbearing: The timing of children's helping behavior across the life cycle of Maya families. In: Socioeconomic aspects of human behavioral ecology, ed. Alvard, M., pp. 335–53. Elsevier.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, K. L. (2005a) Children's help and the pace of reproduction: Cooperative breeding in humans. Evolutionary Anthropology 14:224–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, K. L. (2005b) Maya children: Helpers at the farm. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, K. L. & Greaves, R. D. (2007) Changing patterns of infant mortality and fertility among Pumé foragers and horticulturalists. American Anthropologist 109:713–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, K. L. & McMillan, G. P. (2006) The effect of labor saving technology on longitudinal fertility changes. Current Anthropology 47:165–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, R. D. & Kramer, K. L. (2002) Children's economic roles in the Maya family life cycle: Cain, Caldwell and Chayanov revisited. Population and Development Review 28:475–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nag, M., White, B. & Peet, R. (1978) An anthropological approach to the study of the economic value of children in Java and Nepal. Current Anthropology 19:293–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson Sullivan, R., Lee, R. & Kramer, K. (2008) Counting women's labor: A reanalysis of children's net productivity in Mead Cain's Bangladeshi village. Population Studies 62:25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romaniuk, A. (1980) Increase in natural fertility during the early stages of modernization: Evidence from an African case study, Zaire. Population Studies 34:293–310.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silk, J. B. (2004) Practicing Hamilton's rule: Kin selection in primate groups. In: Cooperation in primates and humans, ed. Kappeler, P. & van Schaik, C., pp. 25–46. Springer Press.Google Scholar
Stecklov, G. (1999) Evaluating the economic returns to childbearing in Côte d'Ivoire. Population Studies 53:1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turke, P. W. (1988) Helpers at the nest: Childcare networks on Ifaluk. In: Human reproductive behaviour: A Darwinian perspective, ed. Betzig, L., Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Turke, P., pp. 173–88. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar