Returns to Parental Investment in Children in Benguet Province, Philippines

1991 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-328
Author(s):  
Jean Treloggen Peterson
Genus ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne H. Gauthier ◽  
Petra W. de Jong

AbstractWhile the literature has documented a general increase in parental investment in children, both in terms of financial and time investment, the motives for this increase remain unclear. This paper aims at shedding light on these motives by examining parents’ own narratives of their parenting experiences from the vantage point of three theoretical perspectives. In doing so, the paper brings side-by-side the goal of providing children with human and social capital to improve their future labour market prospects, the pressures on parents to conform to new societal standards of good and intensive parenting, and the experience of parenting as part of self-development. The data come from a qualitative study of middle-income parents in Canada and the USA. The results provide some support for each of these perspectives, while also revealing how they jointly help explain parents’ large investment in their children as well as the tensions and contradictions that come with it.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470490700500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigal Tifferet ◽  
Orly Manor ◽  
Shlomi Constantini ◽  
Orna Friedman ◽  
Yoel Elizur

Parents do not invest their resources in their children equally. Three factors which elicit differential parental investment are the parent's reproductive value, the child's reproductive value (RV), and the impact of the investment on the child (II). As the child matures, his RV increases while the II may decrease. This raises a question regarding the favored strategy of investment by child age. It was hypothesized that different categories of parental investment generate different age-based strategies. Emotional investment, such as maternal worrying for the child's health, was hypothesized to increase with the child's age, while direct care was hypothesized to decrease with the child's age. Both categories were hypothesized to increase with the mother's age at childbirth. 137 Israeli mothers of children with chronic neurological conditions reported levels of worrying for their child and levels of change in direct care. Maternal worrying about the child's health was positively associated with the child's age at diagnosis and the severity of his illness, and negatively associated with the time from diagnosis. An increase in direct care was positively associated with maternal age at childbirth and illness severity, and negatively associated with the time from diagnosis, and the duration of the marriage. Contrary to the hypothesis, the child's age had no effect on changes in direct care. It appears that in mothers of children with adverse neurological conditions, child and maternal age effect parental investment differently. While the child's age is related to maternal worrying about his health, the mother's age at childbirth is related to changes in direct care.


2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1780) ◽  
pp. 20180080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhán M. Mattison ◽  
Robert J. Quinlan ◽  
Darragh Hare

Matriliny is a system of kinship in which descent and inheritance are conferred along the female line. The theoretically influential concept of the matrilineal puzzle posits that matriliny poses special problems for understanding men's roles in matrilineal societies. Ethnographic work describes the puzzle as the tension experienced by men between the desire to exert control over their natal kin (i.e. the lineage to which they belong) and over their affinal kin (i.e. their spouses and their biological children). Evolutionary work frames the paradox as one resulting from a man investing in his nieces and nephews at the expense of his own biological offspring. In both cases, the rationale for the puzzle rests on two fundamental assumptions: (i) that men are in positions of authority over women and over resources; and (ii) that men are interested in the outcomes of parenting. In this paper, we posit a novel hypothesis that suggests that certain ecological conditions render men expendable within local kinship configurations, nullifying the above assumptions. This arises when (i) women, without significant assistance from men, are capable of meeting the subsistence needs of their families; and (ii) men have little to gain from parental investment in children. We conclude that the expendable male hypothesis may explain the evolution of matriliny in numerous cases, and by noting that female-centred approaches that call into doubt assumptions inherent to male-centred models of kinship are justified in evolutionary perspective. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The evolution of female-biased kinship in humans and other mammals’.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhán M. Mattison ◽  
Robert J. Quinlan ◽  
Darragh Hare

AbstractMatriliny is a system of kinship in which descent and inheritance are conferred along the female line. The theoretically influential concept of the matrilineal puzzle posits that matriliny poses special problems for understanding men’s roles in matrilineal societies. Ethnographic work describes the puzzle as the tension experienced by men between the desire to exert control over their natal kin (i.e., the lineage to which they belong) and over their affinal kin (i.e., their spouses and their biological children). Evolutionary work frames the paradox as one resulting from a man investing in his nieces and nephews at the expense of his own biological offspring. In both cases, the rationale for the puzzle rests on two fundamental assumptions: (i) that men are always in positions of authority over women and over resources; and (ii) that men are interested in the outcomes of parenting. In this paper, we posit a novel hypothesis that suggests that certain ecological conditions render men expendable within local kinship configurations, nullifying the above assumptions. This arises when (i) women, without significant assistance from men, are capable of meeting the subsistence needs of their families; and (ii) men have little to gain from parental investment in children. We conclude that the expendable male hypothesis may explain the evolution of matriliny in numerous cases, and by noting that female-centered approaches that call into doubt assumptions inherent to male-centered models of kinship are justified in evolutionary perspective.


Human Nature ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary L. Hopcroft ◽  
David O. Martin

2019 ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Hajali Dhouha

This paper aims to assess and estimate parental investment in children in four activities: education, health, leisure and nurture. The author first analyzes constructed composite scores and observed similarity for parental investment in health and differences in the other activities but the investment level is little enough. The author next provides new empirical evidence to shed light on the relationship between the level of parental investment and characteristics of the child, the mother and the household. Using Poisson and Negative Binominal regression models on household micro-data, the author finds good investment level in health but weak in education and almost unawareness of leisure and recreation. The education is linked to mothers' attitude and the household lifestyle is slightly valuable for the Center-Eastern area and the capital city. On the contrary, nurture activity is not linked to the lifestyle and exhibit regional differences. Moreover, households in the East of the country are more investing then those in the west.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Hajali Dhouha

This paper aims to assess and estimate parental investment in children in four activities: education, health, leisure and nurture. The author first analyzes constructed composite scores and observed similarity for parental investment in health and differences in the other activities but the investment level is little enough. The author next provides new empirical evidence to shed light on the relationship between the level of parental investment and characteristics of the child, the mother and the household. Using Poisson and Negative Binominal regression models on household micro-data, the author finds good investment level in health but weak in education and almost unawareness of leisure and recreation. The education is linked to mothers' attitude and the household lifestyle is slightly valuable for the Center-Eastern area and the capital city. On the contrary, nurture activity is not linked to the lifestyle and exhibit regional differences. Moreover, households in the East of the country are more investing then those in the west.


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