바로가기메뉴

본문 바로가기 주메뉴 바로가기

Evolutionary Approaches to Low Fertility in Modern Societies

Korean Psychological Journal of Culture and Social Issues / Korean Psychological Journal of Culture and Social Issues, (P)1229-0661; (E)1229-0661
2012, v.18 no.1, pp.97-110

  • Downloaded
  • Viewed

Abstract

The sharp decline of fertility in industrialized countries since the 19th century constitutes a major problem for evolutionary approaches to human behavior. Why would people voluntarily reduce their total number of offspring, despite the fact that resources are so abundant in modern times? Here I review three evolutionary hypotheses for low fertility in modern societies, and discuss how the evolutionary perspective could shed new light on solving the problem of low fertility in Korea. Low fertility may be 1) a maladaptive outcome from the mismatch between our ancestral environments and evolutionarily novel environments, 2) a consequence of gene-culture coevolution where traits that reduce genetic fitness can still spread through a population as a result of imitation, especially if the traits are expressed by high-status people, or 3) an adaptation that maximize parents' long-term genetic fitness in knowledge- based industrialized societies where high parental investment is required for rearing competitive offspring. Based on these considerations, I suggest how the evolutionary explanations of low fertility can be applied to increasing the birth rate in Korea.

keywords
low fertility, evolution, adaptation, gene-culture coevolution, fitness, 저출산, 진화, 적응, 유전자-문화 공진화, 적합도

Reference

1.

Amin, S., Basu, A. M., & Stephenson, R. (2002). Spatial variation in contraceptive use in Bangladesh: Looking beyond the borders. Demography, 39, 251-267.

2.

Barkow, J. H., & Burley, N. (1980). Human fertility, evolutionary biology, and the demographic transition. Ethology and Sociobiology, 1, 163-180.

3.

Boone, J. L., & Kessler, K. L. (1999). More status or more children? Social status, fertility reduction, and long-term fitness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 20, 257-277.

4.

Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (1998). The demographic transition: are we any closer to an evolutionary explanation? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 13, 266-270.

5.

Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

6.

Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (2005). The origin and evolution of cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7.

Caldwell, J., & Caldwell, P. (1998). Regional paths to fertility transition. Journal of Population Research, 18(2), 91-117.

8.

Cleland, J., & Wilson, C. (1987). Demand theories of the fertility transition: an iconoclastic view. Population Studies, 41, 5-30.

9.

Desai, S. (1995). When are children from large families disadvantaged? Evidence from cross- cultural analyses. American Sociological Review, 60, 746-761.

10.

Downey, D. B. (2001). Number of siblings and intellectual development: the resource dilution explanation. American Psychologist, 56, 497-504.

11.

Henrich, J., & McElreath, R. (2007). Dual- inheritance theory: the evolution of human cultural capacities and cultural evolution. In R. I. M. Dunbar & L. Barrett (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp.555 -570). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

12.

Kaplan, H. (1996). A theory of fertility and parental investment in traditional and modern human societies. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 39, 91-135.

13.

Kaplan, H., Lancaster, J. B., Bock, J., & Johnson, S. (1995). Fertility and fitness among Albuquerque men: A competitive labour market theory. In R. I. M. Dunbar (Ed.), Human reproductive decisions: Biological and social perspectives (pp.96-136). London: Macmillan.

14.

Kaplan, H., Lancaster, J. B., Tucker, W. T., & Anderson, K. G. (2002). An evolutionary approach to below replacement fertility. American Journal of Human Biology, 14, 233- 256.

15.

Keister, L. A. (2003). Sharing the wealth: the effect of siblings on adults' wealth ownership. Demography, 40, 521-542.

16.

Lack, D. (1947). The significance of clutch size. Ibis, 89, 302-352.

17.

Lawson, D. W., & Mace, R. (2009). Trade-offs in modern parenting: a longitudinal study of sibling competition for parental care. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 170-183.

18.

Lawson, D. W., & Mace, R. (2010). Optimizing modern family size: Trade-offs between fertility and the economic costs of reproduction. Human Nature, 21, 39-61.

19.

Lee, S. S. (2006). Causes of low fertility and future policy options in Korea. Health and Welfare Forum, 1, 5-17.

20.

Mace, R. (1998). The coevolution of human wealth and inheritance strategies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B: Biological Sciences, 353, 389-397.

21.

Mace, R. (2007). The evolutionary ecology of human family size. In R. I. M. Dunbar & L. Barrett (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp.383-396). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

22.

Mace, R., Allal, N., Sear, R., & Prentice, A. M. (2006). The uptake of modern contraception in a Gambian community: the diffusion of an innovation over 25 years. In J. C. K. Wells, S. Strickland & K. Laland (Eds.), Social Information Transmission and Human Biology (pp.191-206). London: Taylor and Francis.

23.

McNamara, J. M., & Houston, A. I. (2006). State and value: a perspective from behavioural ecology. In J. C. K. Wells, S. Strickland & K. Laland (Eds.), Social Information Transmission and Human Biology (pp.59-88). London: Taylor and Francis.

24.

Metz, J. A. J., Nisbet, R. M., & Geritz, S. A. H. (1992). How should we define ‘fitness’ for general ecological scenarios? Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 7, 198-202.

25.

Newson, L., Postma, E., Lea, S. E. G., Webley, P., Richerson, P. J., & McElreath, R. (2007). Influences on communication about reproduction: the cultural evolution of low fertility. Evolution and Human Behavior, 23, 199-210.

26.

Newson, L., Postmes, T., Lea, S. E. G., & Webley, P. (2005). Why are modern families small? Toward an evolutionary and cultural explanation for the demographic transition. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 360- 375.

27.

Perrusse, D. (1993). Cultural and reproductive success in industrial societies: Testing the relationship at the proximate and ultimate levels. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 267- 323.

28.

Quinlan, R. J. (2007). Human parental effort and environmental risk. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, 247, 121-125.

29.

Roff, D. A. (1992). The Evolution of Life Histories. New York: Chapman & Hall.

30.

Rogers, A. R. (1990). Evolutionary economics of human reproduction. Ethology and Sociobiology, 11, 479-495.

31.

Rotkirch, A. (2007). All that she wants is another baby? Longing for children as a fertility incentive of growing importance. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 89-104.

32.

Vining, D. R. (1986). Social versus reproductive success: The central theoretical problem of human sociobiology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 167-216.

33.

Williams, G. C. (1966). Adaptation and natural selection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Korean Psychological Journal of Culture and Social Issues