Overall, both a women’s and her spouse’s income is significantly negatively associated with the woman’s number of children; probability to remain childless increases with increasing own, but decreases with increasing spouse’s income

Effects of woman’s and husband’s income on woman’s reproduction: Darwinian perspectives on human mating. Martin Fieder and Susanne Huber. Front. Sociol. | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2018.00037

Abstract: From a Darwinian perspective, for women, mate choice may be of crucial importance particularly concerning resources needed for rearing the children. In modern societies, however, resources in terms of income are often provided by both women and men. Nonetheless, the effects of a women’s and her husband’s socio-economic status on woman’s reproduction have not been investigated on a broader level. We therefore aimed to investigate the effects of a women’s and her husband’s income on the women’s number of children and her probability of remaining childless on the basis of census data of 9 contemporary census samples mainly from the developing world, totaling 782,147 women aged 45-54 years and their spouses. Overall, both a women’s and her spouse’s income is significantly negatively associated with the woman’s number of children. Only in Israel, we find a positive association between husband’s income and woman’s offspring number. A woman’s probability to remain childless, however, increases with increasing own, but decreases with increasing spouse’s income. We conclude that in this sample of nearly all developing countries, effects of male social status on woman’s reproduction are acting through childlessness.

Keywords: human, Reproduction, Childlessness, socio-economic status, census