Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Estimating the Prevalence of Nonpaternity in Germany

  • Published:
Human Nature Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The prevalence of nonpaternity in human societies is difficult to establish. To obtain a current and fairly unbiased estimate of the nonpaternity rate in Germany, we analysed a dataset consisting of 971 children and their parents in whom human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing had been carried out in the context of bone marrow transplantation. In this sample, nine exclusions (0.93%) could be identified on the basis of more than 300 HLA-haplotypes defined by four HLA genes. Given this number of exclusions, a maximum likelihood estimate of the nonpaternity rate in the population of 0.94% was obtained with asymptotic 95% confidence limits of 0.33% and 1.55%, respectively. This result is in accordance with recent surveys as well as findings from Switzerland for a comparable sample, and it suggests that earlier estimates of the nonpaternity rate which were often in excess of 10% may have been largely exaggerated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aguilar-Martinez, P., Jourdan, E., Brun, S., Cunat, S., Giansily-Blaizot, M., Pissard, S., & Schved, J. F. (2007). A novel mutation of the beta-globin gene promoter (−102 C > A) and pitfalls in family screening. American Journal of Hematology, 82, 1088–1090.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, K. G. (2006). How well does paternity confidence match actual paternity? Evidence from worldwide nonpaternity rates. Current Anthropology, 47, 513–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bellis, M. A., & Baker, R. R. (1990). Do females promote sperm competition: Data for humans. Animal Behaviour, 40, 997–999.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bellis, M. A., Hughes, K., Hughes, S., & Ashton, J. R. (2005). Measuring paternal discrepancy and its public health consequences. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 59, 749–754.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bodmer, W. F., & Bodmer, J. G. (1978). Evolution and function of the HLA system. British Medical Bulletin, 34, 309–316.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonaiti-Pellié, C., Poisson, N., Bechtel, Y., & Bechtel, P. (1992). Sensitivity of transmission probabilities to paternity exclusion in segregation analysis. Genetic Epidemiology, 9, 67–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brock, D. J. H., & Shrimpton, A. E. (1991). Non-paternity and prenatal genetic screening. Lancet, 338, 1151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broman, K. W. (1999). Cleaning genotype data. Genetic Epidemiology, 17, 79–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buss, D. M., Larsen, R. J., Westen, D., & Semmelroth, J. (1992). Sex differences in jealousy: Evolution, physiology, and psychology. Psychological Science, 3, 251–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). From vigilance to violence: Mate retention tactics in married couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 346–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cerda-Flores, R. M., Barton, S. A., Marty-Gonzalez, L. F., Rivas, F., & Chakraborty, R. (1999). Estimation of nonpaternity in the Mexican population of Nuevo Leon: Validation study with blood group markers. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 109, 281–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chakravarti, A., & Li, C. C. (1983). The probability of exclusion based on the HLA locus. American Journal of Human Genetics, 35, 1048–1052.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (1977). Reproduction. London: Butterworths.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dockerty, J. D., Draper, G., Vincent, T., Rowan, S. D., & Bunch, K. J. (2001). Case-control study of parental age, parity and socioeconomic level in relation to childhood cancers. International Journal of Epidemiology, 30, 1428–1437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Doll, R. (1989). The epidemiology of childhood leukaemia. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A, 152, 341–351.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, J. H. (1957). A critical examination of the reputed primary influence of ABO phenotype on fertility and sex ratio. British Journal of Preventive & Social Medicine, 11, 79–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Euler, H. A., & Weitzel, B. (1996). Discriminative grandparental solicitude as reproductive strategy. Human Nature, 7, 39–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaulin, J. C., McBurney, D. H., & Brakeman-Wartell, S. L. (1997). Matrilateral biases in the investment of aunts and uncles: A consequence and measure of paternity uncertainty. Human Nature, 8, 139–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hemminki, K., & Mutanen, P. (2001). Birth order, family size, and the risk of cancer in young and middle-aged adults. British Journal of Cancer, 84, 1466–1471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henke, L., Fimmers, R., Josephi, E., Cleef, S., Dülmer, M., & Henke, J. (1999). Usefulness of conventional blood groups, DNA-mini-satellites, and short tandem repeat polymorphisms in paternity testing: A comparison. Forensic Science International, 103, 133–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoier, S., Euler, H. A., & Hänze, M. (2001). Diskriminative Fürsorglichkeit von Tanten und Onkeln: Eine empirische Untersuchung aus evolutionspsychologischer Perspektive [Discriminative solicitude of aunts and uncles: An empirical investigation from an evolutionary psychology perspective]. Zeitschrift für Differentielle und Diagnostische Psychologie, 3, 206–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). (1997). Social inequalities and cancer. IARC Scientific Publications 138. Lyon.

  • Jobling, M. A., Hurles, M. E., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2004). Human evolutionary genetics. New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnstone, J. M. (1954). Heterospecific pregnancy. British Journal of Preventive & Social Medicine, 8, 117–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krawczak, M., Böhm, I., Nürnberg, P., Hampe, J., Hundrieser, J., Pöche, H., Peters, C., Slomski, R., Kwiatkowska, J., Nagy, M., Pöpper, A., Epplein, J. T., & Schmidtke, J. (1993). Paternity testing with oligonucleotide multilocus probe (CAC)5/(GTG)5: A multicenter study. Forensic Science International, 59, 101–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lathrop, G. M., Hooper, A. B., Huntsman, J. W., & Ward, R. H. (1983). Evaluating pedigree data. I. The estimation of pedigree error in the presence of marker mistyping. American Journal of Human Genetics, 35, 241–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., & Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, S., & Sooman, A. (1991). Non-paternity and prenatal genetic screening. Lancet, 338, 869–871.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Philipp, E. E. (1973). Comment in discussion: Moral, social, and ethical issues. In G. E. W. Wolstenholme & D. W. Fitzsimons (Eds.), Law and ethics of A.I.D. and embryo transfer (pp. 663–666). Amsterdam: Associated Scientific Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Platek, S. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (2006). Female infidelity and paternal uncertainty. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Procopio, M. (2005). Misattributed paternity: A bias in the family studies in schizophrenia? Medical Hypotheses, 64, 1046–1049.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ritz, E. (1985). The clinical spectrum of hereditary nephritis. Nephrology forum, Kidney International, 27, 83–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sasse, G., Müller, H., Chakraborty, R., & Ott, J. (1994). Estimating the frequency of nonpaternity in Switzerland. Human Heredity, 44, 337–343.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schacht, L. E., & Gershowitz, H. (1963). Frequency of extramarital children as determined by blood groups. In F. Brockington, J. Francois, & L. Gedda (Eds.), Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Human Genetics (pp. 894–897). Rome: Instituto G. Mendel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, A. D. (1989). Screening for cystic fibrosis. Nature, 341, 696.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sykes, B., & Irven, C. (2000). Surnames and the Y chromosome. American Journal of Human Genetics, 66, 1417–1419.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voracek, M., Haubner, T., & Fisher, M. L. (2008). Recent decline in nonpaternity rates: A cross-temporal meta-analyses. Psychological Reports, 103, 799–811.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiederman, M. W. (1997). Extramarital sex: Prevalence and correlates in a national survey. Journal of Sex Research, 34, 167–174.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WMA (World Medical Association) (2008). World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: ethical principles for research involving human subjects. Adopted by the 18th WMA, Helsinki, Finland, June, 1964. Amended by the 59th WMA General Assembly, Seoul, Korea, October, 2008. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf

  • ZEKO (Zentrale Ethikkommission bei der Bundesärztekammer). (1999). Zur Verwendung von patientenbezogenen Informationen für die Forschung in der Medizin und im Gesundheitswesen [On the use of patient-based information in medical research and the health care system]. Deutsches Ärzteblatt, 96, A-3201–A-3204.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf, Universitaetsstr. 1, D-40225, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Michael Wolf & Jochen Musch

  2. Institute for Transplantation Diagnostics and Cell Therapeutics, Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf Medical School, Duesseldorf, Germany

    Juergen Enczmann & Johannes Fischer

Authors
  1. Michael Wolf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jochen Musch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Juergen Enczmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Johannes Fischer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Wolf.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Wolf, M., Musch, J., Enczmann, J. et al. Estimating the Prevalence of Nonpaternity in Germany. Hum Nat 23, 208–217 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-012-9143-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-012-9143-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation