SynthesisHuman nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)2011
Alternatives to the grandmother hypothesis: a meta-analysis of the association between grandparental and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations.
Synthesis in Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 40 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
40 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 126 citations in OpenAlex.
- Grandparental Support and Maternal Postpartum Mental Health : A Review and Meta-Analysis.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2023Pooled it
- Family networks and infant health promotion: a mixed-methods evaluation from a cluster randomised controlled trial in rural Malawi.BMJ open · 2018Trial
- Impact of grandchildren on episodic memory and future-time perspective of older adults.Memory & cognition · 2026Article
- Demography of grandmothering: a case study in Agta foragers.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Close and more distant relatives are associated with child mortality risk in historical Finland.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Investment by maternal grandmother buffers children against the impacts of adverse early life experiences.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Maternal grandmothers buffer the effects of ethnic discrimination among pregnant Latina mothers.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Impact of kinship support on child mortality in the Upper East Region of Ghana: assessing the Grandmother Hypothesis.International health · 2023Article
- How prenatal cortisol levels relate to grandmother-mother relationships among a cohort of Latina women.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2023Article
- Grandmother presence improved grandchild survival against childhood infections but not vaccination coverage in historical Finns.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Article
- An evolutionary perspective on the association between grandmother-mother relationships and maternal mental health among a cohort of pregnant Latina women.Evolution and human behavior : official journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society · 2023Article
- Matrilateral bias of grandparental investment in grandchildren persists despite the grandchildren's adverse early life experiences.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Maternal Grandmothers' Household Residency, Children's Growth, and Body Composition Are Not Related in Urban Maya Families from Yucatan.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2021Article
- Offspring fertility and grandchild survival enhanced by maternal grandmothers in a pre-industrial human society.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Predictive Models of Maternal Harsh Parenting During COVID-19 in China, Italy, and Netherlands.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Frontiers in Molecular Evolutionary Medicine.Journal of molecular evolution · 2020Review
- Kin support and child health: Investigating two approaches in an African slum.Social science research · 2018Article
- Why is parental lifespan linked to children's chances of reaching a high age? A transgenerational hypothesis.SSM - population health · 2018Article
- Grandmothers and Children's Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
We conducted a meta-analysis of 17 studies that tested for an association between grandparental survival and grandchild survival in patrilineal populations. Using two different methodologies, we found that the survival of the maternal grandmother and grandfather, but not the paternal grandmother and grandfather, was associated with decreased grandoffspring mortality. These results are consistent with the findings of psychological studies in developed countries (Coall and Hertwig Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:1-59, 2010). When tested against the predictions of five hypotheses (confidence of paternity; grandmothering, kin proximity, grandparental senescence, and local resource competition), our meta-analysis results are most in line with the local resource competition hypothesis. In patrilineal and predominantly patrilocal societies, the grandparents who are most likely to live with the grandchildren have a less beneficial association than those who do not. We consider the extent to which these results may be influenced by the methodological limitations of the source studies, including the use of retrospective designs and inadequate controls for confounding variables such as wealth.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.