ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
The male breadwinner nuclear family is not the 'traditional' human family, and promotion of this myth may have adverse health consequences.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
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- Conflict, Constraint, Cooperation, and Allocation: A Plural Evolutionary Architecture for Human Reproductive Paradoxes.American journal of biological anthropology · 2026Article
- Early life grandmother caregiving trajectories and child development: a longitudinal study.International journal of behavioral development · 2025Article
- A Mixed-Methods Examination of Fertility Desires and Reproductive Planning Among Low-Income Black Fathers.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Article
- The role of parental religiosity in shaping paternal investment: evidence from Bangladesh and India.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Barriers and Facilitators to Physical Activity in People With Young-Onset (Aged 18-40 Years) Type 2 Diabetes: A Qualitative Study.Journal of clinical nursing · 2025Article
- Children's Caregiving and Growth in Northwestern Tanzania: Limited Evidence That Support From Specific Caregivers Is Associated With Better Growth.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Competing demands on adult children: How do they shape their provision of informal care?SSM - population health · 2025Article
- Tackling Traditional: Tamil Gender Ideologies and their Socioeconomic Correlates.Sociology of development (Oakland, Calif.) · 2025Article
- A critical examination of 'family' caregiving at the end of life in contexts of homelessness: Key concepts and future considerations.Palliative care and social practice · 2025Article
- Little evidence that nonmonogamous family structures are detrimental to children's well-being in Mpimbwe, Tanzania.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Adoption, Fostering, and Parental Absence in Vanuatu.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Article
- Dynamics of cooperative networks associated with gender among South Indian Tamils.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Article
- 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
- Gendered conflict in the human family.Evolutionary human sciences · 2023Review
- Paternal investment, stepfather presence and early child development and growth among Serbian Roma.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Article
- Introduction: A family systems approach to promote maternal, child and adolescent nutrition.Maternal & child nutrition · 2021Article
- Male partner participation in maternity care and social support for childbearing women: a discussion paper.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
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Abstract
The importance of social support for parental and child health and wellbeing is not yet sufficiently widely recognized. The widespread myth in Western contexts that the male breadwinner-female homemaker nuclear family is the 'traditional' family structure leads to a focus on mothers alone as the individuals with responsibility for child wellbeing. Inaccurate perceptions about the family have the potential to distort academic research and public perceptions, and hamper attempts to improve parental and child health. These perceptions may have arisen partly from academic research in disciplines that focus on the Western middle classes, where this particular family form was idealized in the mid-twentieth century, when many of these disciplines were developing their foundational research. By contrast, evidence from disciplines that take a cross-cultural or historical perspective shows that in most human societies, multiple individuals beyond the mother are typically involved in raising children: in evolutionary anthropology, it is now widely accepted that we have evolved a strategy of cooperative reproduction. Expecting mothers to care for children with little support, while expecting fathers to provide for their families with little support, is, therefore, likely to lead to adverse health consequences for mothers, fathers and children. Incorporating evidence-based evolutionary, and anthropological, perspectives into research on health is vital if we are to ensure the wellbeing of individuals across a wide range of contexts. This article is part of the theme issue 'Multidisciplinary perspectives on social support and maternal-child health'.
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