Alloparental Care and Assistance in a Normatively Patrilocal Society

Abstract

Parental care is often supplemented by “alloparents.” There is increasing research interest in who these alloparents are and how they affect child well-being. Most earlier research indicates that mother’s kin are more frequent and more beneficial alloparents than father’s kin, but is this true even under patrilocality? This study investigated living arrangements and the alloparental care and assistance provided to mothers in intact first marriages in rural Bangladesh. Despite patrilocal norms, scarcely more than half of the families actually resided patrilocally; many dwelt neolocally, and if the father was an absent migrant laborer, 22% dwelt matrilocally. Mother’s relatives outnumbered their patrilateral counterparts as primary resource contributors by 58 to 10, and maternal uncles outnumbered paternal uncles by 27 to 9. Multivariate analyses found that patrilocal residence, net of income effects, was associated with children having shorter stature and lower weight. Matrilocal residence was associated w...