ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2016
Developmental influences on fertility decisions by women: an evolutionary perspective.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Beneath the Surface of Unfounded Belief Systems: An Extended Test of the Dimensionality Hypothesis.Scandinavian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- Adult Children's Timing of Entry into Parenthood : Parental Investment, Education, and Gender.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Life Course Timing of Mortality Exposure and Fertility Behavior.Population research and policy review · 2025Article
- Review
- From the Ground Up: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Past Fertility and Population Narratives.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Father absence and pubertal timing in Korean boys and girls.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Costs of reproduction and ageing in the human female.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Using sequence analysis to test if human life histories are coherent strategies.Evolutionary human sciences · 2020Article
- Cross-cultural evidence does not support universal acceleration of puberty in father-absent households.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Early stress, parental motivation, and reproductive decision-making: applications of life history theory to parental behavior.Current opinion in psychology · 2017Review
- The Psychometric Evaluation of Human Life Histories.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior · 2017Review
- Understanding variation in human fertility: what can we learn from evolutionary demography?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- The evolved psychological mechanisms of fertility motivation: hunting for causation in a sea of correlation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2016Review
- Adverse Childhood Environment: Relationship With Sexual Risk Behaviors and Marital Status in a Large American Sample.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
- The Relation Between War, Starvation, and Fertility Ideals in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Life History Perspective.Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behaviorArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Developmental environments are crucial for shaping our life course. Elements of the early social and biological environments have been consistently associated with reproduction in humans. To date, a strong focus has been on the relationship between early stress, earlier menarche and first child birth in women. These associations, found predominately in high-income countries, have been usefully interpreted within life-history theory frameworks. Fertility, on the other hand--a missing link between an individual's early environment, reproductive strategy and fitness--has received little attention. Here, we synthesize this literature by examining the associations between early adversity, age at menarche and fertility and fecundity in women. We examine the evidence that potential mechanisms such as birth weight, childhood body composition, risky health behaviours and developmental influences on attractiveness link the early environment and fecundity and fertility. The evidence that menarche is associated with fertility and fecundity is good. Currently, owing to the small number of correlational studies and mixed methodologies, the evidence that early adversity predicts fecundity and fertility is not conclusive. This area of research is in its infancy; studies examining early adversity and adult fertility decisions that can also examine likely biological, social and psychological pathways present opportunities for future fertility research.
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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.