ArticleEvolutionary human sciences2019
Fathers favour sons, mothers don't discriminate: Sex-biased parental care in northwestern Tanzania.
Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- 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
- Are boys more vulnerable to stunting? Examining risk factors, differential sensitivity, and measurement issues in Zambian infants and young children.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Inequalities in measles immunization coverage among two-year-olds in Sierra Leone, 2008-2019.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Misperception of peer beliefs reinforces inequitable gender norms among Tanzanian men.Evolutionary human sciences · 2024Article
- Rates of ecological knowledge learning in Pemba, Tanzania: Implications for childhood evolution.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Article
- Investigating the Structure of Son Bias in Armenia With Novel Measures of Individual Preferences.Demography · 2021Article
- Greater male vulnerability to stunting? Evaluating sex differences in growth, pathways and biocultural mechanisms.Annals of human biology · 2021Article
- He for she? Variation and exaggeration in men's support for women's empowerment in northern Tanzania.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Variation in parental care by child's sex is evident across cultures. Evolutionary theory provides a functional explanation for this phenomenon, predicting that parents will favour specific children if this results in greater fitness payoffs. Here, we explore evidence for sex-biased parental care in a high-fertility, patriarchal and polygynous population in Tanzania, predicting that both mothers and fathers will favour sons in this cultural setting. Our data come from a cross-sectional study in rural northwestern Tanzania, which included surveys with mothers/guardians of 808 children under age 5. We focus on early childhood, a period with high mortality risk which is fundamental in establishing later-life physical and cognitive development. Examining multiple measures of direct/physical care provision (washing, feeding, playing with, supervising, co-sleeping and caring when sick), we demonstrate that fathers favour sons for washing, feeding and supervising, while maternal care is both more intensive and unrelated to child sex. We find no difference in parental care between girls and boys regarding the allocation of material resources and the duration of breastfeeding; or in terms of parental marital and co-residence status. This bias towards sons may result from higher returns to investment for fathers than mothers, and local gender norms about physical care provision.
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