Offspring

Few demographers worry about how biological processes might affect voluntary behavior choices that have demographic consequences even though behavioral geneticists have documented genetics effects on variables such as parenting and divorce. This work reviews the state of research in this field and identifies research directions for the future.

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Despite recent advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of human behavior, little of this work has penetrated into formal demography. Very few demographers worry about how biological processes might affect voluntary behavior choices that have demographic consequences even though behavioral geneticists have documented genetics effects on variables such as parenting and divorce. Offspring: Human Fertility Behavior in Demographic Perspective brings together leading researchers from a wide variety of disciplines to review the state of research in this emerging field and to identify promising research directions for the future.


Table of Contents


Front Matter
1. Biodemography of Fertility and Family Formation
2. Genetic Influences on Fertility: Strengths and Limitations of
Quantitative Inferences
3. Education, Fertility, and Heritability: Explaining a Paradox
4. The Neural Basis of Pair Bonding in a Monogamous Species: A
Model for Understanding the Biological Basis of Human Behavior
5. Hormonal Mediation of Physiological and Behavioral Processes
That Influence Fertility
6. Intraspection Variablity in Fertility and Offspring Survival in
a Nonhuman Primate: Behavioral Control in Ecological and Social
Sources
7. An Evolutionary and Ecological Analysis of Human Fertility,
Mating Patterns, and Parental Investment
8. Sexually Antagonistic Coevolution: Theory, Evidence, and
Implications for Patterns of Human Mating and Fertility
9. Pubertal Maturation, Andrenarche, and the Onset of Reproduction
in Human Males
10. Energetics, Sociality, and Human Reproduction: Life History
Theory in Real Life
11. Evolutionary Biology and Rational Choice in Models of Fertility
12. Reflections on Demographic, Evolutionary, and Genetic
Approaches to the Study of Human Reproductive Behavior
Contributors and Other Workshop Participants
Index