Sedentarization and maternal childcare networks: role of risk, gender and demography

Abstract

Women cooperate over multiple domains and while research from western contexts portrays women's networks as limited in size and breadth, women receive help, particularly with childcare, from a diverse range of individuals (allomothers). Nonetheless, little exploration has occurred into why we see such diversity. Wide maternal childcare networks may be a consequence of a lack of resource accumulation in mobile hunter–gatherers—where instead households rely on risk-pooling in informal insurance networks. By contrast, when households settle and accumulate resources, they are able to retain risk by absorbing losses. Thus, the size and composition of mothers' childcare networks may depend on risk-buffering, as captured by mobile and settled households in the Agta, a Philippine foraging population with diverse lifestyles. Across 78 children, we find that childcare from grandmothers and sisters was higher in settled camps, while childcare from male kin was lower, offering little support for risk-buffering. Nonetheless, girls’ workloads were increased in settled camps while grandmothers had fewer dependent children, increasing their availability. These results point to gender-specific changes associated with shifting demographics as camps become larger and more settled. Evidently, women's social networks, rather than being constrained by biology, are responsive to the changing socioecological context. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cooperation among women: evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives’.

Dynamics of cooperative networks associated with gender among South Indian Tamils

“…The most obvious example is the importance of childcare for females given the requisite physical and time investments necessitated by maternity and the rearing of adolescents. Accordingly, possible sex-based differences in the dynamics governing alloparenting networks [ 10 , 97 – 100 ] could differ from those that may characterize, for example, networks of agriculture-related advice [ 12 ] and networks of friendship [ 22 , 29 , 31 , 43 , 47 , 101 , 102 ].…”

New perspectives on the evolution of women's cooperation

“…In this issue, authors tested several novel predictions about how women's cooperation is influenced by socioecological context. For example, Page and colleagues ([ 114 ], in this issue) hypothesized that women's childcare networks respond to major livelihood transitions. They predicted that in the shift from mobile to sedentary residence, childcare networks should decrease in size since wealth accumulates with sedentarism, reducing the need to rely on large networks of cooperators.…”

Sensitive responsiveness and multiple caregiving networks among Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers: Potential implications for psychological development and well-being.

“…Relative to WEIRD children one of the most pronounced differences in caregiver network composition is the prevalence of subadult Mbendjele allomothers. The composition of allomaternal networks varies substantially across hunter-gatherer groups (Page et al, 2022). For instance, we found that fathers only provided 5.5% of close care received by children under 1.5 years old, and 3.5% for 1.5- to 4-year-olds; whereas, the level of paternal care among Aka hunter-gatherers from the neighboring Central African Republic is the highest reported in any human society (Hewlett, 1992).…”