Women’s Trade-Offs between Fertility and Employment during Industrialisation

Modelling fertility decline in post-industrial populations in the context of life history theory has allowed us to better understand the environmental pressures that shape reduced family size. One such pressure, which has received relatively little attention from ecologists, is the movement of women into the labour market. Analyses of effects of employment on fertility in contemporary developing or post-demographic transition populations are limited by the widespread use of modern contraceptives: while uptake of these methods may be a mechanism by which reduced fertility is enacted, their use may obscure effects of employment on fertility. Here, we investigated the impact of women’s employment on family size during a period of the movement of women into the workforce but prior to the use of modern contraceptives. We analysed the effects of women’s employment on family size using census records from 1901 for a regional-level analysis of parishes in Scotland, and for 1851–1901 for an individual-level analysis of the Scottish city of Dundee. Women in employment had fewer children than those not in employment. Income was inversely related with family size, and this was independent of the effects of women’s employment on family size. We suggest that female employment contributes to the evolution of smaller family sizes and that this takes place in the context of prevailing and emerging gender roles, and in interaction with opportunities for employment and wealth.

TINA Is Dead: Reflecting on Postcapitalist Futures

Social sciences in recent years have clearly proven that TINA—There Is No Alternative (to capitalism)—is no longer tenable. Today, alterity to capitalism comes in many forms and blossoms from inside its borders. Ethnographies of experimentations that span from ecovillages and community economies to alternative forms of work, production, and consumption are now countless. One common denominator of these experiences is that communal forms of social relation take over market relations. The main theoretical issue raised by this empirical work is whether this ferment of scattered, small scale alternative ways of organizing economy and society can coalesce into a fully fledged postcapitalist future or whether it is doomed to be stay marginal and transient at best. Anthropology can be at the forefront of this theoretical challenge. We close this brief commentary by addressing the importance of a future-oriented thinking in Anthropology and for the social science in general.

Small WORLD: Ancient Egyptian Architectural Replicas from the Tomb of Meketre

The paper presents a study of the context, functions, and rationale behind architectural replicas sealed off in ancient Egyptian tombs, the finest exemplars of which having been excavated in the Theban tomb of Meketre (ca. 2000 B.C.). The analysis is preceded by clarifications regarding the terminology used, the point of view from which they have to be considered, and the developments that led to their presence in the funerary assemblage. It is suggested that in the sealed ‘replicas chamber’ or burial chamber in which they were deposited, it was mainly the winged ba, a connective agent between the worlds of life, death, and eternity, that was meant to enter the imaginary realm of the replicas and feed the deceased in order to revivify him.

The Austronesian Advantage: Natural Selection and Linguistic Diversity

The “Austronesian advantage” suggests that Austronesian-speaking populations in Melanesia are resistant to tropical splenomegaly syndrome, a medical condition linked to chronic exposure to malaria. This hypothesis was proposed by Kevin M. Kelly in his 1988 dissertation, a subsequent 1990 paper, and a 1993 paper co-published with Jeffrey Clark. I now update the Austronesian advantage hypothesis with additional linguistic, anthropological, and genetic data. I find that cultural adaptations cannot fully explain the Austronesian expansion. Rather, the Austronesian advantage, a classic example of natural selection, completes the picture by connecting the Austronesian expansion with greater reproductive success. I also strengthen the Austronesian advantage hypothesis with data from Tibet. The correlation between language expansion and natural selection extends well beyond the Austronesian world.

With Lofty Goals and Familiar Perspectives, Humans Begins

The world is confronted by problems that are multi- and interdisciplinary, global, and complex [...]

Legal yet Illegitimate Governance in Italy

For several decades Naples has exemplified the deficit of legitimacy that now outstandingly mars public life in Italy and across many democracies. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from extended anthropological field research, this article examines the increasing gap between rulers and the ruled, which jeopardizes the authority, therefore legitimacy, of governance. With a focus on this major Italian city, the discussion leads to the conclusion that this gap and its ramifications are a substantial threat to democracy that urgently needs to be understood in depth and comprehensively, eschewing both conceptual superimposition and ideological bias organic to vested interests.