Showing papers by "Mary K. Shenk published in 2022"

Does gender structure social networks across domains of cooperation? An exploration of gendered networks among matrilineal and patrilineal Mosuo

Abstract: Cooperative networks are essential features of human society. Evolutionary theory hypothesizes that networks are used differently by men and women, yet the bulk of evidence supporting this hypothesis is based on studies conducted in a limited range of contexts and on few domains of cooperation. In this paper, we compare individual-level cooperative networks from two communities in Southwest China that differ systematically in kinship norms and institutions—one matrilineal and one patrilineal—while sharing an ethnic identity. Specifically, we investigate whether network structures differ based on prevailing kinship norms and type of gendered cooperative activity, one woman-centred (preparation of community meals) and one man-centred (farm equipment lending). Our descriptive results show a mixture of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ features in all four networks. The matrilineal meals network stands out in terms of high degree skew. Exponential random graph models reveal a stronger role for geographical proximity in patriliny and a limited role of affinal relatedness across all networks. Our results point to the need to consider domains of cooperative activity alongside gender and cultural context to fully understand variation in how women and men leverage social relationships toward different ends. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cooperation among women: evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives’.

Context Specificity of “Market Integration” among the Matrilineal Mosuo of Southwest China

Abstract: Market integration (MI) is a complex process through which individuals integrate market-oriented activities into previously subsistence-dominated lifeways. Changes associated with MI alter the landscapes of individual health and reproductive decision-making. While the consequences of MI are often easily detected in aggregate, the specific aspects of MI that affect health and demography are context dependent and underinvestigated. We argue that an evolutionary perspective can inform such investigations by emphasizing individuals’ responses to the opportunities and challenges presented by MI in their particular context. Among adult matrilineal Mosuo participants from six villages in southwest China who are experiencing rapid MI driven by ethnic tourism, we investigated relationships between multiple indicators of MI and three outcomes commonly associated with MI: waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, and age at first reproduction. Different MI indicators distributed across individual, household, and community levels of social organization predicted these outcomes. This suggests that commonly used simple metrics of MI can usefully be supplemented by additional context-appropriate indicators of MI. Evolutionary theory and other frameworks that situate hypotheses of MI within specific social, cultural, and historical contexts will be most capable of identifying specific pathways through which multiple elements of MI affect different domains of reproductive and health behavior and outcomes.

Market integration, income inequality, and kinship system among the Mosuo of China

Abstract: Abstract Abstract Increased access to defensible material wealth is hypothesised to escalate inequality. Market integration, which creates novel opportunities in cash economies, provides a means of testing this hypothesis. Using demographic data collected from 505 households among the matrilineal and patrilineal Mosuo in 2017, we test whether market integration is associated with increased material wealth, whether increased material wealth is associated with wealth inequality, and whether being in a matrilineal vs. patrilineal kinship system alters the relationship between wealth and inequality. We find evidence that market integration, measured as distance to the nearest source of tourism and primary source of household income, is associated with increased household income and ‘modern’ asset value. Both village-level market integration and mean asset value were associated negatively, rather than positively, with inequality, contrary to predictions. Finally, income, modern wealth and inequality were higher in matrilineal communities that were located closer to the centre of tourism and where tourism has long provided a relatively stable source of income. However, we also observed exacerbated inequality with increasing farm animal value in patriliny. We conclude that the forces affecting wealth and inequality depend on local context and that the importance of local institutions is obscured by aggregate statistics drawn from modern nation states.

Faith and fertility in evolutionary perspective

Abstract: The role of men’s home production. Feminist Economics, 17(2), 87–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2011. 573484 Esping-Andersen, G., & Billari, F. C. (2015). Re-theorizing family demographics. Population and Development Review, 41(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00024.x Goldscheider, F., Bernhardt, E., & Lappegård, T. (2015). The gender revolution: A framework for understanding changing family and demographic behavior. Population and Development Review, 41(2), 207–239. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00045.x Hackett, C., Stonawski, M., Potančoková, M., Grim, B. J., & Skirbekk, V. (2015). The future size of religiously affiliated and unaffiliated populations. Demographic Research, 32, 829–842. http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 26350133 https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2015.32.27 Hochschild, A. (1989). The second shift. Avon Books. Iannaccone, L. R. (1998). Introduction to the economics of religion. Journal of Economic Literature, 36(3), 1465–1495. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2564806 Kaufmann, E. (2010). Shall the religious inherit the earth? Demography and politics in the twenty-first century. Profile. Lesthaeghe, R. (2010). The unfolding story of the second demographic transition. Population and Development Review, 36(2), 211–251. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2010.00328.x Lutz, W., Skirbekk, V., & Testa, M. R. (2006). The low-fertility trap hypothesis: Forces that may lead to further postponement and fewer births in Europe. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 4, 167–192. https://doi.org/10. 1553/populationyearbook2006s167 Martin, D. (2005). On secularization: Towards a revised general theory. Ashgate. McDonald, P. (2000). Gender equity in theories of fertility transition. Population and Development Review, 26(3), 427–439. http://www.jstor.org/stable/172314 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2000.00427.x Pace, E. (2007). Religion as communication: The changing shape of Catholicism in Europe. In N. E. Ammerman (Ed.), Everyday religion: Observing modern religious lives (pp. 37–50). Oxford University Press. Stolzenberg, R. M., Blair-Loy, M., &Waite, L. J. (1995). Religious participation in early adulthood: Age and family life cycle effects on church membership. American Sociological Review, 60(1), 84–103. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2096347 Tilley, J. R. (2003). Secularization and aging in britain: Does family formation cause greater religiosity? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(2), 269–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1387842 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5906. 00178 United Nations. (2020). World fertility and family planning 2020 highlights. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. ST/ESA/SER.A/440. Voas, D. (2008). The rise and fall of fuzzy fidelity in Europe. European Sociological Review, 25(2), 155–168. https:// doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcn044

The impact of market integration on arranged marriages in Matlab, Bangladesh

Abstract: Abstract Abstract Success in marriage markets has lasting impacts on women's wellbeing. By arranging marriages, parents exert financial and social powers to influence spouse characteristics and ensure optimal marriages. While arranging marriages is a major focus of parental investment, marriage decisions are also a source of conflict between parents and daughters in which parents often have more power. The process of market integration may alter parental investment strategies, however, increasing children's bargaining power and reducing parents’ influence over children's marriage decisions. We use data from a market integrating region of Bangladesh to (a) describe temporal changes in marriage types, (b) identify which women enter arranged marriages and (c) determine how market integration affects patterns of arranged marriage. Most women's marriages were arranged, with love marriages more recent. We found few predictors of who entered arranged vs. love marriages, and family-level market integration did not predict marriage type at the individual level. However, based on descriptive findings, and findings relating women's and fathers’ education to groom characteristics, we argue that at the society-level market integration has opened a novel path in which daughters use their own status, gained via parental investments, to facilitate good marriages under conditions of reduced parental assistance or control.

Fertility and faith: insights from human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, and life history theory

Abstract: National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(51), 19111–19115. McLeod, H. (1974). Class and religion in the Late Victorian City. Croom Helm. Roof, W. C. (1993). A generation of seekers: The spiritual journeys of the baby boom generation. Harper. Wuthnow, R. (2007). After the baby boomers: How twentyand thirty-somethings are shaping the future of American religion. Princeton University Press. Zuckerman, P., Galen, L., & Pasquale, F. (2016). The nonreligious: Understanding secular people and societies. OUP.

Religiosity is associated with greater size, kin density, and geographic dispersal of women’s social networks in Bangladesh

Abstract: Human social relationships, often grounded in kinship, are being fundamentally altered by globalization as integration into geographically distant markets disrupts traditional kin based social networks. Religion plays a significant role in regulating social networks and may both stabilize extant networks as well as create new ones in ways that are under-recognized during the process of market integration. Here we use a detailed survey assessing the social networks of women in rural Bangladesh to examine whether religiosity preserves bonds among kin or broadens social networks to include fellow practitioners, thereby replacing genetic kin with unrelated co-religionists. Results show that the social networks of more religious women are larger and contain more kin but not more non-kin. More religious women's networks are also more geographically diffuse and differ from those of less religious women by providing more emotional support, but not helping more with childcare or offering more financial assistance. Overall, these results suggest that in some areas experiencing rapid social, economic, and demographic change, religion, in certain contexts, may not serve to broaden social networks to include non-kin, but may rather help to strengthen ties between relatives and promote family cohesion.

Disentangling the relationships between religion and fertility

Abstract: In this issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior, scholars from multiple disciplines offer comments on Philip Jenkins’ Fertility and Faith (Jenkins, 2020). The debate, and Jenkins’ response to the commentaries, contribute to moving scholarship forward in an often-neglected area in the scientific study of religion. The book tackles an extensive literature, synthesizing work on several topics: drivers of secularization, drivers of fertility decline, the relationship between religion and fertility, and whether these relationships are consistent across countries and religious communities. Through this synthesis, Jenkins argues that religiosity and fertility are tightly linked, rising and falling in tandem through time and across the world. The commentary authors highlight several questions that remain unsolved by Jenkins’ synthesis. Voas (2022), for example, notes that Jenkins does not favor one mechanism over another, suggesting that changes in both religiosity and fertility may affect change in feedback loops. Potentially, Jenkins’ non-preference for a single mechanism is because he does not employ a strong theoretical framework to explain the relationship between religiosity and fertility, as Lynch and co-authors argue (2022). This is complicated by the range of data available to study this question. Globally, analyses of religiosity and fertility have to deal with the problem of scales of analysis, balancing studies at individual-versus country-level data, as Peri-Rotem (2022) highlights. Focusing on global trends to the exclusion of individual-level data, as well as using a lens which prioritizes a Western and present-centered viewpoint, has the potential to erase local and temporal variation in the relationship between family formation and religion both in Western and global settings (Brown, 2022; Shaver et al., 2022; Walters & Sear, 2022). Our own work employs evolutionary theory and in-depth fieldwork to investigate the dynamics between religion and fertility. In the remainder of this editorial, we describe our efforts as part of the Evolutionary Demography of Religion project, which was designed to further understand the links between religiosity, fertility, and child success. Three of the commentaries on Fertility and Faith were contributed by members of the Evolutionary Demography of Religion team, and here we give a general description of this project. In doing so, we hope to explain how the project will further advance our understanding of the complex relationship between religion and fertility. The project’s central hypothesis is that religious systems promote collaboration between individuals, thus facilitating greater access to social support systems among more religious women and/or families (e.g., help with childcare). The support provided to religious women and families can help offset the costs of reproduction, resulting in higher fertility compared to their secular counterparts (Shaver, 2017). Moreover, differences in fertility between religious groups are expected to vary as a result of religious groups’ ability to overcome cooperative dilemmas that themselves vary across socioecological contexts. To evaluate these hypotheses, our mixedmethods project combines anthropological and demographic methods, conducting surveys and focus group discussions across five study locations: India, Bangladesh, Malawi, The Gambia, and the United States. Our research is being conducted in partnership with local institutions including the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icdrr,b), the Society for Health and Demographic Surveillance in India, the West Kiang HDSS based at