Reproductive Success In Women Research Articles

Reply: Increased reproductive success of women after prenatal undernutrition?

Reply: Increased reproductive success of women after prenatal undernutrition?

Are longer legs associated with enhanced fertility in Chinese women?

Female height impacts fertility differently in western and nonwestern cultures. Leg length or relatively longer legs comprise key components of height and possibly indicates mate value. We examined the associations between height, its components, and reproductive outcomes in a large Chinese cohort. Multivariable regression was used to assess the association of height, leg length (standing minus sitting height) and relatively longer legs with number of offspring in a cross-sectional sample of 9998 Chinese people aged at least 50 years from Phase 2 of the Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study recruited in 2005–2006. Older and less educated respondents had more children. Adjusted for age, childhood socioeconomic status (SES), and education, women with longer legs had more offspring; however, there was no such association in men. When stratified by childhood SES (reported parental material possessions), longer legs and relatively longer legs were most strongly associated with more offspring in women from poorer backgrounds. Fertility was specifically associated with longer legs and relatively longer legs in women only. The difference in the association of leg length to number of offspring by childhood SES suggests a preference advantage rather than a physiological advantage in being taller. However, these benefits were specific to reproductive success in women and particularly women from poorer backgrounds suggesting that social factors may have facilitated fertility.

Taller women do better in a stressed environment: Height and reproductive success in rural Guatemalan women

Previous research on the relationship between height and reproductive success in women has produced mixed results. One possible explanation for these is mediation by ecological factors, such as environmental stress. Here we investigate female height and reproductive success under conditions of environmental stress (poverty) using a large scale dataset from Guatemala (n = 2,571). Controlling for educational attainment, age and ethnicity, we examined relationships between height and childlessness, occurrence of a stillbirth, fertility and child survival. There was no significant relationship between height and never haven given birth. Extremely short women had a significantly raised likelihood of experiencing stillbirth. There were curvilinear relationships between height and age at first birth, fertility, and survival rates for children. Overall, though, the penalties for short stature, particularly in terms of child survival, were far greater than those associated with extreme tallness, and so female height is positively associated with overall fitness in this population.

Resources and reproductive success in women with an example from the Kipsigis of Kenya.

Contrary to findings in studies of many mammalian species, the relationship between resources and reproductive success of women is highly variable across societies. This has led some social scientists to suggest that evolutionary biological models are inappropriate to the study of human social behaviour. This paper proposes that variability in the relationship between resources and reproductive success arises from an inadequate specification of the nature and availability of resources critical to reproduction and a failure to understand the mechanisms whereby resources confer reproductive differentials in different environments. Data are presented from the Kipsigis of Kenya showing how land ownership affects female reproductive success; reasons why the effects of landholding are changing over time are examined.