Are fathers a good substitute for mothers? Paternal care and growth rates in Shodagor children

Abstract

Biparental care is a hallmark of human social organization, though paternal investment varies between and within societies. The facultative nature of paternal care in humans suggests males should invest when their care improves child survival and/or quality, though testing this prediction can be challenging because of the difficulties of empirically isolating paternal effects from those of other caregivers. Additionally, the broader context in which care is provided, vis‐à‐vis care from mothers and others, may lead to different child outcomes. Here, we examine the effects of paternal care on child growth among Shodagor fisher‐traders, where fathers provide high levels of both additive and substitutive care, relative to mothers. We modeled seasonal z‐scores and velocities for height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) outcomes using linear mixed models. Our evidence indicates that, as predicted, the context of paternal care is an important predictor of child outcomes. Results show that environmental seasonality and alloparental help contribute to a nuanced understanding of the impact of Shodagor paternal care on child physiology.

Shodagor women cooperate across domains of work and childcare to solve an adaptive problem

“…Shodagor women may also be engaged in intergenerational, reciprocal childcare relationships, especially given that grandparents and siblings appear to be the most commonly named alloparents for fishers and traders ( [33]; electronic supplementary material, figure S1). In sum, we think it is likely that for Shodagor women, kinship co-occurs with reciprocal cooperation over a longer time scale, rather than with simultaneous, direct reciprocal exchange of childcare help, which explains why kinship and not direct reciprocity increase the likelihood of a childcare tie in our model.…”

“…R. Soc. B 378: 20210433 childcare and women who trade need childcare help in order to work [32,33]. Women who fish often return to work one to two months after giving birth, and bring nursing infants and children of all ages along with them.…”

“…In all Shodagor households, mothers and fathers provide the majority of direct care for their dependent children [33]. Here, we define direct care as feeding, carrying, soothing, watching (or 'babysitting'), grooming, teaching or any other type of physical interaction directed towards a child [35][36][37].…”

“…October-March), fathers stay at home and care for children. But when care from alloparents is given in addition to paternal care in trading households, it is an important predictor of women's trading [32,34] and of child growth [33], suggesting that alloparents help to free-up women so they can engage in work that is incompatible with childcare. At the same time, previous data suggest that alloparents may play a less prominent role in fishing households and are not necessary in order for parents to work.…”

Fathers, families, and physiology: Exploring the psychobiological context of fathering

“…In an article that helps bring attention to the diverse cultural and ecological conditions in which fathering occurs, Starkweather et al. (2021) focused on paternal care among the Shodagor, a small‐scale fishing/trading society in Bangladesh. Shodagor fathers play significant roles as caregivers, including when women leave the home for entire seasons to work as traders to provide financial support for their families.…”