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Men in the demographic transition

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Abstract

Women’s fertility is the focus of most demographic analyses, for in most mammals, and in many preindustrial societies, variance in male fertility, while an interesting biological phenomenon, is irrelevant. Yet in monogamous societies, the reproductive ecology of men, as well as that of women, is important is creating reproductive patterns. In nineteenth-century Sweden, the focus of this study, male reproductive ecology responded to resource conditions: richer men had more children than poorer men. Men’s fertility also interacted with local and historical factors in complex ways to have significant impact on population growth. As a result, “the” demographic transition was local, and locally reversible, in Sweden. Results cannot be simply translated from nineteenth-century studies to current attempts to promote fertility decline, because today, male and female resource-fertility curves differ in shape, not only in magnitude. When we translate studies of fertility decline, it is important to study individual fertility and to discern whether, in any particular case, male and female patterns are similar.

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  1. Evolution and Human Behavior Program and School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, 48109-1115, Ann Arbor, MI

    Bobbi S. Low

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Bobbi S. Low is Professor of Resource Ecology at the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Her background is in behavioral and evolutionary ecology and her current research interests are human sex differences in risk-taking and resource use.

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Low, B.S. Men in the demographic transition. Human Nature 5, 223–253 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02692153

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