Abstract
Ever since Darwin evolutionary biologists have speculated how fecundity restraining traits may have evolved. Obviously iteroparous organisms (reproducing more than once in life), by adapting the time of producing offspring, inevitably reproduce below the physiological maximum. But it seems difficult to argue that, for example, human couples in developed societies, which barely reproduce on the replacement level, are reproducing at the maximums which the circumstances in the risky and unpredictable environment of modern times allowed. In industrialized societies a woman can easily have 8–10 children without any negative effect on her remaining age specific fecundity or her longevity (Voland and Engel 1989, with further references). But not only in modern, also in very primitive societies human couples reproduce well below the physiological maximum.
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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Mueller, U. (1992). Birth Control as a Social Dilemma. In: Haag, G., Mueller, U., Troitzsch, K.G. (eds) Economic Evolution and Demographic Change. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, vol 395. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48808-5_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-48808-5_13
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