Assessing Effects of Life History Antecedents on Age at Menarche and Sexual Debut Using a Genetically Informative Design

Abstract

Life history derived models of female sexual development all propose menarche timing as a key regulatory mechanism driving subsequent sexual behavior. The current research utilized a twin subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n =520) to comprehensively evaluate effects of life history antecedents on menarche timing and sexual debut, and extend understanding of these life history models with a genetically informative design. The results show mixed support for each life history model and did not provide evidence any effect on age at menarche. Results of this research call to question the underlying assumptions of life history derived models of sexual development and highlight the need for more behavior genetic research in this area.

“Fast” women? The effects of childhood environments on women's developmental timing, mating strategies, and reproductive outcomes

“…Earlier menarche is robustly associated with age of sexual debut across Western and developing countries (e.g., Copeland et al, 2010;Helm & Lidegaard, 1989;Ibitoye et al, 2017). However, there is little support that earlier menarche leads to unrestricted mating orientations, more sexual partners, relationship instability, or low-quality parenting (reviewed in Ellis, 2004; see also Copeland et al, 2010;Ibitoye et al, 2017;Barbaro et al, 2020). Notably, a survey of over 10,000 women found a near-zero correlation (.007) between age of menarche and sociosexual attitudes (Batres & Perrett, 2016).…”

“…The early work by Belsky et al (1991) One threat to the idea that pubertal timing is part of fast-slow reproductive strategies is the repeated finding from pedigree studies implementing multiple family relations (not just twins) that age of menarche is roughly 50% heritable, with 50% of its variance due to environmental variance, but little to no variance due to environmental factors shared by siblings raised in the same household (e.g., Towne et al, 2005;Morris et al, 2011). These findings pose challenges to claims that familial factors such as household instability or SES substantially influence pubertal timing (e.g., Barbaro et al, 2020)-and, indeed, we find little evidence that these factors (aside from exposure to violence) have much influence. However, the findings do not rule out the possibility that age of menarche is subject to adaptive calibration more generally.…”