Paternal Care by Genetic Fathers and Stepfathers I: Reports from Albuquerque Men
Received 19 January 1999; received in revised form 31 July 1999
Abstract
We present a biosocial model of human male parental care that allows male parental allocations to be influenced not only by changes in the fitness (welfare) of the recipient offspring, but also by their effects on the man's relationship with the child's mother. The model recognizes four classes of relationships between males and the children they parent: genetic offspring of current mates (combined relationship and parental effort), genetic offspring of previous mates (parental effort solely), step offspring of current mates (relationship effort solely), and stepchildren of previous mates (essentially no expected investment). We test the model using data on parental investments collected from adult males living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. Four measures of paternal investment are examined: the probability that a child attends college (2,191 offspring), the probability that a child who attends college receives money for it (N = 1,212), current financial expenditures on children (N = 635), and the amount of time per week that men spend with children ages 5 to 12 years (N = 2,589). The tests are consistent with a role for relationship effort in parental care: men invest more in the children of their current mates, even when coresidence with offspring is not a confounder.
aPopulation Studies Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA
bHuman Evolutionary Ecology Program, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM USA
Address reprint requests and correspondence to: Kermyt G. Anderson, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, 426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, U.S.A.
ABSTRACT