Offspring

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 Matter1. Biodemography of Fertility and Family Formation2. Genetic Influences on Fertility: Strengths and Limitations ofQuantitative Inferences3. Education, Fertility, and Heritability: Explaining a Paradox4. The Neural Basis of Pair Bonding in a Monogamous Species: AModel for Understanding the Biological Basis of Human Behavior5. Hormonal Mediation of Physiological and Behavioral ProcessesThat Influence Fertility6. Intraspection Variablity in Fertility and Offspring Survival ina Nonhuman Primate: Behavioral Control in Ecological and SocialSources7. An Evolutionary and Ecological Analysis of Human Fertility,Mating Patterns, and Parental Investment8. Sexually Antagonistic Coevolution: Theory, Evidence, andImplications for Patterns of Human Mating and Fertility9. Pubertal Maturation, Andrenarche, and the Onset of Reproductionin Human Males10. Energetics, Sociality, and Human Reproduction: Life HistoryTheory in Real Life11. Evolutionary Biology and Rational Choice in Models of Fertility12. Reflections on Demographic, Evolutionary, and GeneticApproaches to the Study of Human Reproductive BehaviorContributors and Other Workshop ParticipantsIndex