Models Of Parental Investment Research Articles

The Difference of Parental Investment Model Between Multi-child Family and One-child Family

This study compared the parental investment patterns of multi-child families and single-child families. Through comparative analysis of the two family types, it is found that they have some differences in parental investment behavior. The results show that families with many children pay more attention to the cultivation of parent-child relationship, while families with only one child pay more attention to the cultivation of individual ability and independence. The research also found that the two kinds of families have differences in education investment, time investment and emotional investment, and different family types have their own characteristics and advantages in parental investment. These findings have important implications for understanding the differences in parental investment between different family types.

Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Math Proficiency Development: The Role of Parental Math Expectation, Investment, and Involvement

Parental investment mechanisms underlying the relations between socioeconomic status (SES)and primary math proficiency are not well-understood. Using the lens of parental expectation, parental investment and parental stress model, present study narratively reviewed relevant literature on parental math expectation, math investment and math involvement that mediates the relations between SES and primary math proficiency. Evidence suggests that compared to high-SES parents, low-SES parents have low math expectation, poor math investment and math involvement by which low-SES influences poor math proficiency development over the primary schooling. Further research is necessary to confirm the parental investment pathways by which low-SES compared to high-SES influences children’s poor math proficiency during primary grades.

The Negative Impact of Economic Hardship on Adolescent Academic Engagement: An Examination Parental Investment and Family Stress Processes.

Academic success is a strong predictor of adolescent adjustment and subsequent adult social, psychological, and economic well-being. Importantly, research has established a negative relationship between family economic hardship and children's educational outcomes. Despite being disproportionately represented among the most financially disadvantaged, African Americans remain an understudied group. The current study utilizes a longitudinal study design and prospective data from the Family and Community Health Study (n = 422, 52% girls, average age = 10.5 years at Wave 1), an African American sample, to investigate the impact of economic hardship on adolescent academic engagement by testing explanations offered by two commonly employed perspectives: the parental investment model and family stress model. While both models yielded significant results when tested separately, only the processes specified by the family stress model remained significant in a combined model, demonstrating that it is the superior explanation. By addressing many of the deficits of past research on the parental investment model and family stress model, the study was able to shed new light on the specific pathways by which economic disadvantage exerts an effect on youth outcomes. In doing so, the results question whether potentially middle-class, Eurocentric models (e.g., the parental investment model) are applicable when studying economically distressed African American youth.

Conditional Cooperation and Turn-Taking in Parental Care

Sexual conflict is inescapable when two parents care for offspring, because providing care is personally costly, while the benefits of successful reproduction are shared. Previous models that treat parental investment as a continuous trait, with stable levels of effort negotiated between parents over evolutionary or behavioural time, generally predict that sexual conflict will lead to under-investment in the young, as each parent stands to gain by leaving its partner to bear a greater share of the costs of care. More recently, a model of parental investment as repeated discrete contributions suggested that a more efficient outcome can be reached through parents adopting a simple strategy of conditional cooperation by ‘turn-taking’: only investing after each contribution by their partner. However, while empirical work suggests that parental visits are significantly alternated in a number of natural systems, all examples thus far exhibit imperfect turn-taking rather than the strict rule predicted by theory. To help bridge this gap, we here present a more realistic mathematical model of parental turn-taking, incorporating (i) errors in parents’ ability to monitor the contributions of their partner, (ii) time-dependent costs and benefits of delivering care, (iii) differences between partners in payoffs (and consequently in behaviour), (iv) differences between partners in the accuracy with which they can monitor one another’s behaviour, and (v) shared costs of care. We illustrate how the degree of conditional cooperation is influenced by each of these factors, and discuss ways in which our model could be tested empirically.

Sharing the Load: How Do Coresident Children Influence the Allocation of Work and Schooling in Northwestern Tanzania?

Economic and evolutionary models of parental investment often predict education biases toward earlier-born children, resulting from either household resource dilution or parental preference. Previous research, however, has not always found these predicted biases-perhaps because in societies where children work, older children are more efficient at household tasks and substitute for younger children, whose time can then be allocated to school. The role of labor substitution in determining children's schooling remains uncertain, however, because few studies have simultaneously considered intrahousehold variation in both children's education and work. Here, we investigate the influence of coresident children on education, work, and leisure in northwestern Tanzania, using detailed time use data collected from multiple children per household (n = 1,273). We find that age order (relative age, compared with coresident children) within the household is associated with children's time allocation, but these patterns differ by gender. Relatively young girls do less work, have more leisure time, and have greater odds of school enrollment than older girls. We suggest that this results from labor substitution: older girls are more efficient workers, freeing younger girls' time for education and leisure. Conversely, relatively older boys have the highest odds of school enrollment among coresident boys, possibly reflecting traditional norms regarding household work allocation and age hierarchies. Gender is also important in household work allocation: boys who coreside with more girls do fewer household chores. We conclude that considering children as both producers and consumers is critical to understanding intrahousehold variation in children's schooling and work.

Parental feeding responses to experimental short-term partner removal in a species with male and female brood desertion

As parental care is costly, it can be expected that there will be a sexual conflict between parents over the individual levels of parental investment because each parent has limited resources to invest in a reproductive event. Theoretical models of parental investment predict that when one parent reduces its parental effort, the other parent should adjust its effort facultatively to compensate for the decrease in the mate’s contribution. Here, we tested for facultative adjustments in care in the rock sparrow, Petronia petronia. In this species, both sexes can desert the brood, creating the potential for strong sexual conflict over parental care to occur. To that end, we examined how rock sparrow parents adjust their level of care in response to an experimental mate removal for a limited time period, mimicking the starting phase of the desertion process. We compared male and female provisioning rates before and after an experimental mate removal. Males behaved according to the prediction of compensatory adjustment, as they allocated more care to the offspring and returned faster to the nest after female removal, whereas females showed no response. Our study shows sexual differences in response to mate removal in a species with biparental care and strong sexual conflict over parental care, and suggests that males may use the female absence to determine their actual parental effort.Significance statementStrong differences in parental care, with one sex providing more care than the other, are widespread across the animal kingdom. Theoretical models of parental investment predict that when one parent reduces its care, the mate should adjust its care facultatively to compensate. Here, we tested for facultative adjustments in care in the rock sparrow when their mates were experimentally removed for a limited time period. We show that only male behavior was consistent with theoretical predictions as they increased their frequency of provisioning significantly after mate removal, whereas females showed no response. Our study suggests that members of a pair do not make independent decisions, but negotiate to modify their effort in direct response to the prior effort of their mate.

Long-term Effects of Preschool on School Performance, Earnings and Social Mobility

Children from disadvantaged families perform very poorly in school and labour market because they acquire low level of social, motivational and cognitive skills during their early childhood development. Using the NLSY data set, this paper formulates and then estimates the production processes for cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills such as social and motivational skills during early childhood development and the long-term effects of these skills on learning and lifetime earnings of an individual. Using these estimated relationships, the paper provides a calibrated intergenerational altruistic model of parental investment in children's preschool. This dynamic model is then used to estimate the effects of publicly provided preschool to the children of poor socioeconomic status (SES) as a social contract on lifetime earnings distribution, intergenerational college and social mobility, and to estimate the tax burden of such a social contract. JEL Classifications: J24, J62, O15, I21

Optimists or realists? How ants allocate resources in making reproductive investments.

Parents often face an investment trade-off between either producing many small or fewer large offspring. When environments vary predictably, the fittest parental solution matches available resources by varying only number of offspring and never optimal individual size. However when mismatches occur often between parental expectations and true resource levels, dynamic models like multifaceted parental investment (MFPI) and parental optimism (PO) both predict offspring size can vary significantly. MFPI is a "realist" strategy: parents assume future environments of average richness. When resources exceed expectations and it is too late to add more offspring, the best-case solution increases investment per individual. Brood size distributions therefore track the degree of mismatch from right-skewed around an optimal size (slight underestimation of resources) to left-skewed around a maximal size (gross underestimation). Conversely, PO is an "optimist" strategy: parents assume maximally good resource futures and match numbers to that situation. Normal or lean years do not affect "core" brood as costs primarily fall on excess "marginal" siblings who die or experience stunted growth (producing left-skewed distributions). Investment patterns supportive of both MFPI and PO models have been observed in nature, but studies that directly manipulate food resources to test predictions are lacking. Ant colonies produce many offspring per reproductive cycle and are amenable to experimental manipulation in ways that can differentiate between MFPI and PO investment strategies. Colonies in a natural population of a harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex salinus) were protein-supplemented over 2years, and mature sexual offspring were collected annually prior to their nuptial flight. Several results support either MFPI or PO in terms of patterns in offspring size distributions and how protein differentially affected male and female production. Unpredicted by either model, however, is that supplementation affected distributions more strongly across years than within (e.g., small females are significantly rarer in the year after colonies receive protein). Parental investment strategies in P.salinus vary dynamically across years and conditions. Finding that past conditions can more strongly affect reproductive decisions than current ones, however, is not addressed by models of parental investment.

Child Monetary Poverty and Multidimensional Deprivations: Why They Differ

We analyse the causal effect of parental education on the potential mismatch between child monetary poverty and multidimensional deprivations. First, in a simple model of parental investment in child outcomes, we demonstrate that the misalignment between household monetary resources and parental education causes a mismatch. Indeed, a match between poverty and deprivation occurs whenever household consumption expenditure and parental education are correlated. Second, using micro-level data from Tanzania, we find that parental education has a negative effect on the probability that a monetarily non-poor child suffers some basic deprivations, and a positive effect on the likelihood that a monetarily poor child suffers no basic deprivations.

Child Monetary Poverty and Multidimensional Deprivations: Why They Differ

We analyze the causal effect of parental education on the potential mismatch between child monetary poverty and multidimensional deprivations. First, in a simple model of parental investment in child outcomes, we demonstrate that the misalignment between household monetary resources and parental education causes a mismatch. Indeed, a match between poverty and deprivation occurs whenever household consumption expenditure and parental education are correlated. Second, using micro-level data from Tanzania, we find that parental education has a negative effect on the probability that a monetarily non-poor child suffers some basic deprivations, and a positive effect on the likelihood that a monetarily poor child suffers no basic deprivations.

How Sex-Biased Dispersal Affects Sexual Conflict over Care

Existing models of parental investment have mainly focused on interactions at the level of the family and have paid much less attention to the impact of population-level processes. Here we extend classical models of parental care to assess the impact of population structure and limited dispersal. We find that sex differences in dispersal substantially affect the amount of care provided by each parent, with the more philopatric sex providing the majority of care to young. This effect is most pronounced in highly viscous populations: in such cases, when classical models would predict stable biparental care, inclusion of a modest sex difference in dispersal leads to uniparental care by the philopatric sex. In addition, mating skew also affects sex differences in parental investment, with the more numerous sex providing most of the care. However, the effect of mating skew holds only when parents care for their own offspring. When individuals breed communally, we recover the previous finding that the more philopatric sex provides most of the care even when it is the rarer sex. We conclude that sex-biased dispersal is likely to be an important yet currently overlooked driver of sex differences in parental care.

Monetary and Multidimensional Child Poverty: Why They Differ

We investigate the effect of parental education on the concordance/discordance between monetary and multidimensional child poverty. First, in a simple model of parental investment in child outcomes, we demonstrate that the misalignment between household income and parental education is a predictor of the mismatch between monetary and multidimensional child poverty. Indeed, a match between these two poverty measurements occurs whenever household income and parental education are correlated. Second, using Tanzania NPS data, we find that parental education has a negative effect on the probability that a monetarily non-poor child suffers some basic deprivations, and a positive effect on the likelihood that a monetarily poor child suffers no basic deprivations.

Edith Wharton in Washington, 2–4 June 2016

Edith Wharton in Washington, 2–4 June 2016

The Contribution of Skills and Family Background to Educational Mobility

AbstractWe study the role of hard and soft skills in economic performance and social mobility in a sample of twins (N = 2,764) from the Minnesota Twin Family Study, combining classical economic models of parental investment with a complete and realistic equilibrium model of genetic transmission of skills. Hard and soft skills have comparable roles in affecting early educational success and college attainment. We then use the information on family background to estimate the determinants of social intergenerational mobility. The transmission of personality characteristics – in particular but not exclusively of intelligence – explains a substantial fraction of upward and downward mobility of children.

Optimal Taxation of Opportunity Inputs

This paper studies the optimal taxation for opportunity inputs, such as education. In a model of parental investment and social preferences that might value equal opportunity, I use budget-neutral tax reforms to find the optimal tax scheme as a function of policy elasticities and income effects. Later, the model is expanded to introduce parental and child heterogeneity, externalities, and egalitarian concerns for adult welfare. Simulations, using data on education funding, suggest that egalitarian preferences induce significant redistribution of opportunity inputs. Under the optimal tax scheme, the vast majority of households would rely solely on public funding of education, which is in line with the patterns observed in most countries and, interestingly, is a result that is robust to the presence of heterogeneity or externalities.

Socioeconomic status and receptive vocabulary development: Replication of the parental investment model with Chilean preschoolers and their families

Drawing on the first wave of data from the Chilean Longitudinal Study for Early Childhood the current study examined the relation between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's receptive Spanish vocabulary, and whether these relations were mediated by physical features of the home environment, parent–child interactions, and participation in center-based child care. The results of path analyses (n=1589) estimating direct and indirect effects of SES on children's receptive vocabulary test scores provided evidence of partial mediation through indices of standard of living and parents’ level of cognitive and linguistic stimulation in the home. This study is among the first to replicate with a non-U.S. sample, a well-established linkage among SES, family-level conditions and processes, and young children's language outcomes.

How should parents adjust the size of their young in response to local environmental cues?

Models of parental investment typically assume that populations are well mixed and homogeneous and have devoted little attention to the impact of spatial variation in the local environment. Here, in a patch-structured model with limited dispersal, we assess to what extent resource-rich and resource-poor mothers should alter the size of their young in response to the local environment in their patch. We show that limited dispersal leads to a correlation between maternal and offspring environments, which favours plastic adjustment of offspring size in response to local survival risk. Strikingly, however, resource-poor mothers are predicted to respond more strongly to local survival risk, whereas resource-rich mothers are predicted to respond less strongly. This lack of sensitivity on the part of resource-rich mothers is favoured because they accrue much of their fitness through dispersing young. By contrast, resource-poor mothers accrue a larger fraction of their fitness through philopatric young and should therefore respond more strongly to local risk. Mothers with more resources gain a larger share of their fitness through dispersing young partly because their fitness in the local patch is constrained by the limited number of local breeding spots. In addition, when resource variation occurs at the patch level, the philopatric offspring of resource-rich mothers face stronger competition from the offspring of other local mothers, who also enjoy abundant resources. The effect of limited local breeding opportunities becomes less pronounced as patch size increases, but the impact of patch-level variation in resources holds up even with many breeders per patch.

“Asia's Missing Women” as a Problem in Applied Evolutionary Psychology?

In many parts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, women and children are so undervalued, neglected, abused, and so often killed, that sex ratios are now strongly male biased. In recent decades, sex-biased abortion has exacerbated the problem. In this article I highlight several important insights from evolutionary biology into both the origin and the severe societal consequences of "Asia's missing women", paying particular attention to interactions between evolution, economics and culture. Son preferences and associated cultural practices like patrilineal inheritance, patrilocality and the Indian Hindu dowry system arise among the wealthy and powerful elites for reasons consistent with models of sex-biased parental investment. Those practices then spread via imitation as technology gets cheaper and economic development allows the middle class to grow rapidly. I will consider evidence from India, China and elsewhere that grossly male-biased sex ratios lead to increased crime, violence, local warfare, political instability, drug abuse, prostitution and trafficking of women. The problem of Asia's missing women presents a challenge for applied evolutionary psychology to help us understand and ameliorate sex ratio biases and their most severe consequences.

Time with sons and daughters

We present a model of parental investment in child quality in which the effectiveness—objectively or as perceived by the parents—of parental childcare depends on the sex of the child. In particular, the time of the same-sex parent is more productive than that of the opposite-sex parent. When parents have equal wages, efficiency considerations dictate that a parent spends more time with a same-sex child than with an opposite-sex child, but parents allocate the same total time to boys and girls, and costs of raising a boy are the same as raising a girl. When wage rates differ, and the mother is the lower-waged parent, it is cheaper to produce child quality of girls than of boys. We show that many of the empirical results in terms of a different time allocation pattern, total amount of time invested in a child, expenditures on child consumption goods, and family size and composition can be explained by this technological difference and the gender wage gap, without relying on parental preferences for girls versus boys. Our analysis is largely diagrammatic.

Mating by proxy: a novel perspective to donor conception

How single, partnered lesbian, and partnered heterosexual women undertaking donor insemination rate the importance of donor characteristics is explored in the context of Trivers's parental investment theory. Consistent with this theory, single women placed higher value on biographical traits reflective of the donor's level of potential resources (occupation, hobbies, age) and good character compared with either partnered lesbian or heterosexual women.