> My index is failing me here but I recall a paper that had looked into falling birth rates as standards of living increased and found that birth rate correlated strongly with the "cost" of children. The supposition (it really wasn't a theory or even a solid hypothesis) was that as parents became more educated and society's measure of success became more material, the parental effort to provide the "best" for their kids went up.
I think it is pretty clear that humans (like animals generally) are more likely to adopt K strategy (smaller numbers of offspring with higher investment in each) rather than r strategy (larger numbers of offspring with smaller investment in each) in a stable, secure environment, and that this is structurally favored by the environment.
I wouldn't put much weight on the suggestion that either the number or investment piece drives the other, though.
I don't disagree (someone does though :-)) The argument is that given an expected pool of available wealth K to a couple, and a predicted cost p per offspring. Is O = K / p variable? or constant?
More simply, if you change one and not the other, does the value of O go up and down? The article was trying to look at that question by evaluating K and p and comparing O for different values.
I think it is pretty clear that humans (like animals generally) are more likely to adopt K strategy (smaller numbers of offspring with higher investment in each) rather than r strategy (larger numbers of offspring with smaller investment in each) in a stable, secure environment, and that this is structurally favored by the environment.
I wouldn't put much weight on the suggestion that either the number or investment piece drives the other, though.