Household crowding and reproductive behavior.

Abstract

Ethological studies suggest that animal populations that live in crowded conditions display a number of behaviors that tend to limit the size of the population, such as aberrant forms of sexual behavior, small litter sizes, a higher incidence of spontaneous abortion, ineffectual maternal care, and even cannibalism of their young. Studies of household crowding in North America cities have produced only modest and selective evidence that crowding has similar effects among humans. In this paper, we examine the effect of household crowding on marital sexual relations, on desire for additional children, and on fetal and child loss in Bangkok, Thailand, a city with a much wider range of household crowding than is typically found in North America. In spite of the wider range, and higher mean level of crowding, we find that both the objective and subjective dimensions of crowding have only modest selective effects on sexual and reproductive behavior.