Intelligence and childlessness.

doi:10.1016/J.SSRESEARCH.2014.06.003

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Intelligence and childlessness.

Journal Article•DOI•

Intelligence and childlessness.

Satoshi Kanazawa¹•Institutions (1)

London School of Economics and Political Science¹

01 Nov 2014-Social Science Research (Academic Press)-Vol. 48, pp 157-170

TL;DR: Analyses of the National Child Development Study show that more intelligent men and women express preference to remain childless early in their reproductive careers, but only more intelligent women are more likely to remainChildless by the end of their reproductive career.

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About: This article is published in Social Science Research.The article was published on 2014-11-01. It has received 46 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Childlessness & Population.

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Journal Article•

A Treatise on the Family

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Saul D. Hoffman

01 Aug 2000-Journal of Marriage and Family

TL;DR: A Treatise on the Family by G. S. Becker as discussed by the authors is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics.

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Abstract: A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

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4,817 citations

Journal Article•

Mental Retardation: A Family Study

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Richard Koch

01 Mar 1966-Pediatrics

TL;DR: This is a monumental study of the relatives of 289 persons who lived at Faribault Minnesota State Colony for the Retarded during the years 1911 to 1918—each retardate averaged 25 years of residential care within the institution.

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Abstract: This is a monumental study of the relatives of 289 persons who lived at Faribault Minnesota State Colony for the Retarded during the years 1911 to 1918. Information about 82,217 persons is analyzed in this volume—each retardate averaged 25 years of residential care within the institution. The original study was developed in 1910 and was reopened in 1949 by the present investigators. I find it difficult to assess the value of this book for pediatricians. It is undoubtedly a very meaningful report for geneticists, but I would not recommend its purchase by the practicing pediatrician.

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37 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Personality and voluntary childlessness

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Margaret Avison¹, Adrian Furnham¹•Institutions (1)

University College London¹

11 Jan 2015-Journal of Population Research

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the association between personality and childbearing motivation, with a focus on voluntary childlessness, and found that personality plays a considerable role in influencing individuals towards, or away from, parenthood.

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Abstract: This study examined the association between personality and childbearing motivation, with a focus on voluntary childlessness. 780 adults completed an online survey assessing the Big Five personality traits, the trait of Independence, desire for parenthood, motivations for choosing childlessness and various other socio-demographic characteristics. Compared to parents or those desiring children, childfree respondents scored significantly higher in Independence and significantly lower in Agreeableness and Extraversion. They were also less religious and more politically liberal. For non-parents, level of desire for parenthood was negatively correlated with Independence and positively correlated with Agreeableness and religiosity. The ideal number of children desired was positively correlated with Agreeableness and religiosity. Childfree respondents who decided early in life not to have children (‘early articulators’) were significantly higher in Independence and Openness to Experience than those who decided later in life. Motivations for childlessness loaded onto five factors, four of which correlated significantly with personality traits. The results suggest that personality plays a considerable role in influencing individuals towards, or away from, parenthood.

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32 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century

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Heitor B. F. Fernandes¹, Aurelio José Figueredo², Gerhard Meisenberg³•Institutions (3)

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul¹, University of Arizona², Ross University³

21 Apr 2015-Frontiers in Psychology

TL;DR: It has been theorized that declines in general intelligence (g) due to genetic selection stemming from the inverse association between completed fertility and IQ and the Flynn effect co-occur, with the effects of the latter being concentrated on less heritable non-g sources of intelligence variance.

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Abstract: It has been theorized that declines in g due to negative selection stemming from the inverse association between completed fertility and IQ, and the Flynn effect co-occur, with the effects of the latter being concentrated on less-heritable non-g sources of intelligence variance. Evidence for this comes from the observation that 19th Century populations were more intellectually productive, and also exhibited faster simple reaction times than modern ones, suggesting higher g. This co-occurrence model is tested via examination of historical changes in the utilization frequencies of words from the highly g-loaded WORDSUM test across 5.9 million texts spanning 1850 to 2005. Consistent with predictions, words with higher difficulties (δ parameters from Item Response Theory) and stronger negative correlations between pass-rates and completed fertility presented a steeper decline in use over time, than less difficult and less negatively selected words, which increased in use over time, suggestive of a Flynn effect. These findings persisted when explicitly controlled for word age, literacy rates and temporal autocorrelation. These trends constitute compelling evidence that both producers and consumers of text have experienced declines in g since the mid-19th Century.

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30 citations

Cites background from "Intelligence and childlessness."

...ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 21 April 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00361 Edited by: J. Michael Williams, Drexel University, USA Reviewed by: Lei Chang, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China David Geary, University of Missouri, USA *Correspondence: Michael A. Woodley of Menie, Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany; Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium michael.woodley@vub.ac.be Specialty section: This article was submitted to Evolutionary Psychology and Neuroscience, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 21 January 2015 Accepted: 14 March 2015 Published: 21 April 2015 Citation: Woodley of Menie MA, Fernandes HBF, Figueredo AJ and Meisenberg G (2015) By their words ye shall know them: Evidence of genetic selection against general intelligence and concurrent environmental enrichment in vocabulary usage since the mid 19th century....
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...…Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium michael.woodley@vub.ac.be Specialty section: This article was submitted to Evolutionary Psychology and Neuroscience, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 21…...
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...…Galton’s (1869) predictions, asmost studies found that IQ was inversely related to fertility, suggesting directional genetic selection for lower intelligence (Lynn, 2011) – a trend that persists into the present (Lynn and van Court, 2004; Meisenberg, 2010; Reeve et al., 2013; Kanazawa, 2014)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Iq and socioeconomic development across regions of the uk.

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Noah Carl¹•Institutions (1)

University of Oxford¹

01 May 2016-Journal of Biosocial Science

TL;DR: The paper provides evidence for the validity of the regional IQs by showing that IQ estimates for UK nations derived from the same data are strongly correlated with national PISA scores, and finds that regional IQ is positively related to income, longevity and technological accomplishment; and is negatively related to poverty, deprivation and unemployment.

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Abstract: Cross-regional correlations between average IQ and socioeconomic development have been documented in many different countries. This paper presents new IQ estimates for the twelve regions of the UK. These are weakly correlated (r=0.24) with the regional IQs assembled by Lynn (1979). Assuming the two sets of estimates are accurate and comparable, this finding suggests that the relative IQs of different UK regions have changed since the 1950s, most likely due to differentials in the magnitude of the Flynn effect, the selectivity of external migration, the selectivity of internal migration or the strength of the relationship between IQ and fertility. The paper provides evidence for the validity of the regional IQs by showing that IQ estimates for UK nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) derived from the same data are strongly correlated with national PISA scores (r=0.99). It finds that regional IQ is positively related to income, longevity and technological accomplishment; and is negatively related to poverty, deprivation and unemployment. A general factor of socioeconomic development is correlated with regional IQ at r=0.72.

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29 citations

Cites background from "Intelligence and childlessness."

...Fourth, cross-regional differentials in the strength of the relationship between IQ and fertility (see Lynn & Van Court, 2004; Meisenberg, 2010; Lynn, 2011; Chen et al., 2013; Reeve et al., 2013; Kanazawa, 2014; Hopcraft, 2014; Woodley, 2015): fertility might have had a more positive genetic effect in some regions than in others....
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...…in the strength of the relationship between IQ and fertility (see Lynn & Van Court, 2004; Meisenberg, 2010; Lynn, 2011; Chen et al., 2013; Reeve et al., 2013; Kanazawa, 2014; Hopcraft, 2014; Woodley, 2015): fertility might have had a more positive genetic effect in some regions than in others....
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Book•

The Intelligence Paradox: Why the Intelligent Choice Isn't Always the Smart One

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Satoshi Kanazawa

10 Apr 2012

47 citations

"Intelligence and childlessness." refers background in this paper

...In fact, many of the evolutionarily novel preferences and values espoused by more intelligent individuals are often maladaptive in the context of the current environment (Kanazawa, 2012)....
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...More intelligent individuals are more likely to engage in binge drinking and get drunk (Kanazawa, 2012, pp. 163–167)....
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...All rights reserved....
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Journal Article•DOI•

Voluntary childlessness among American men and women in the late 1980's.

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Cardell K. Jacobson¹, Tim B. Heaton¹•Institutions (1)

Brigham Young University¹

01 Jan 1991-Biodemography and Social Biology

TL;DR: Examining both attitudinal and demographic factors associated with childlessness in the United States collected in 1987 and 1988 found that those who scored highly on measures of support for traditional families and support of extended families also tended to have lower rates of childlessness.

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Abstract: Most studies of childlessness in the United States have relied on unrepresentative, opportunistic samples collected in a variety of ways. Thus, the relationship of various correlates to childlessness is not well known. Some studies have focused on demographic variables, but have not examined attitudinal factors associated with childlessness--something the opportunistic samples have been able to do. In this paper we examine both attitudinal and demographic factors associated with childlessness in the United States. The data used in this paper are from the National Survey of Families and Households collected in 1987 and 1988. The data set includes both demographic data, perceived advantages and disadvantages of having children, and attitudinal data about related social issues. Overall, the rate of voluntary childlessness was not high. Only 3.5 per cent of the men and 2.8 per cent of the women reported that they were childless and did not expect to have children. Only one category of people (unmarried men and women over the age of 35) had rates that exceeded ten per cent. A combined variable of age and marital status was the best predictor of childlessness. A scale of reasons or justifications for having children was the next best predictor. In addition, attendance at religious services, number of hours the respondents desired to work and education (for women only) were related to childlessness. Those who scored highly on measures of support for traditional families and support of extended families also tended to have lower rates of childlessness. Occupational status, religious denomination, and race, on the other hand, were not significantly related to childlessness. Measures of gender equality, religious fundamentalism, and support for mothers working were also not related to childlessness.

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44 citations

"Intelligence and childlessness." refers background in this paper

...A large number of past studies have shown that more educated women are more likely to remain childless for life (Bloom and Trussell, 1984; Jacobson and Heaton, 1991; Kiernan, 1989; Mosher and Bachrach, 1982; Poston and Kramer, 1986; see Bloom and Pebley, 1982 for review)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The future of sociobiology: Counting babies or studying proximate mechanisms

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Charles Crawford¹•Institutions (1)

Simon Fraser University¹

01 May 1993-Trends in Ecology and Evolution

TL;DR: I contrast the perspective of those sociobiologists who use the approach of behavioural ecology, and who have come to be known as 'darwinian anthropologists' or 'Darwinian social scientists', with their critics, who describe the research methods that each uses and ask if those issues must also be confronted by those studying animals.

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Abstract: Much of the debate over applying the theory of evolution to the study of human behaviour has died down because most critics now realize that the political ramifications of sociobiology are no more, or no less, than those of behaviourism, psychoanalysis or cognitive science. But controversy remains. It is scientific, and concerns the ‘proper’ way to do human sociobiology. I contrast the perspective of those sociobiologists who use the approach of behavioural ecology, and who have come to be known as ‘darwinian anthropologists’ or ‘darwinian social scientists’, with their critics, who refer to themselves as evolutionary or ‘darwinian psychologists’, describe the research methods that each uses, and ask if those issues must also be confronted by those studying animals.

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43 citations

"Intelligence and childlessness." refers background in this paper

...On the one hand, evolutionary psychology (Crawford, 1993; Symons, 1990; Tooby and Cosmides, 1990) posits that the human brain, just like any other organ of any other species, is designed for and adapted to the conditions of the ancestral environment (roughly the African savanna during the…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

How intelligence affects fertility

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Robert D. Retherford, William H. Sewell¹•Institutions (1)

University of Wisconsin-Madison¹

01 Apr 1989-Intelligence

TL;DR: The authors found that IQ had a small but statistically significant negative effect on subsequent family size and that the negative effect was considerably larger for women than for men, while the positive effect was larger for men than women.

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42 citations

"Intelligence and childlessness." refers background or methods or result in this paper

...Retherford and Sewell (1988, 1989), Meisenberg (2010; Meisenberg and Kaul, 2010), Reeve et al. (2013), and Chen et al. (2013) all show either that both intelligence and education have independent effects on fertility net of each other or that education entirely mediates the effect of intelligence…...
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...In their analysis of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, Retherford and Sewell (1988, 1989) show that childhood intelligence, measured in 11th grade, decreases fertility, measured at 35....
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...For example, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (Retherford and Sewell, 1988, 1989) measures intelligence with only one IQ test (Henmon–Nelson Test), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (Meisenberg, 2010; Meisenberg and Kaul, 2010; Neiss et al., 2002) uses four subtests of the Armed Forces Qualification Test (arithmetic, word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, and mathematics knowledge), and the Middle-Aged Danish Twin survey (Rodgers et al., 2008) uses five (fluency, digit-span forward, digit-span backward, digit symbol substitution, and delayed recall)....
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...More importantly, contrary to the earlier findings by Retherford and Sewell (1988, 1989), Meisenberg (2010; Meisenberg and Kaul, 2010), Reeve et al. (2013), and Chen et al. (2013), education net of childhood general intelligence is not significantly associated with lifetime parenthood either for…...
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...For example, the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (Retherford and Sewell, 1988, 1989) measures intelligence with only one IQ test (Henmon–Nelson Test), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (Meisenberg, 2010; Meisenberg and Kaul, 2010; Neiss et al., 2002) uses four subtests of the Armed Forces…...
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Journal Article•DOI•

On the origins of body size dimorphism in primates

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M. Pickford¹•Institutions (1)

University of Mainz¹

01 Feb 1986-Human Evolution

TL;DR: It is hypothesised that among Primates, a common strategy for overcoming the extra metabolic load of pregnency and lactation experienced by females during the greater part of their adult lifetimes, is for them to reduce their bodyweights relative to those of males.

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Abstract: Among many explanations concerning the origins of dimorphism in Primates, none has received as little attention as the differences in energy requirements of the two sexes It is hypothesised that among Primates, a common strategy for overcoming the extra metabolic load of pregnency and lactation experienced by females during the greater part of their adult lifetimes, is for them to reduce their bodyweights relative to those of males Such a strategy allows the mother plus infant combination to weight approximately as much as the species target weight or slightly less, preserving the balance between the species and the environment

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39 citations

"Intelligence and childlessness." refers background in this paper

...…intelligent girls) are more likely to grow up to value sexual exclusivity (Kanazawa, 2010a), possibly because humans were naturally polygynous throughout evolutionary history (Alexander et al., 1979; Harvey and Bennett, 1985; Kanazawa and Novak, 2005; Leutenegger and Kelly, 1977; Pickford, 1986)....
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