Big and tall parents have more sons: further generalizations of the Trivers-Willard hypothesis.
This paper proposes the generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis (gTWH), which suggests that parents who possess any heritable trait which increases male reproductive success at a greater rate than female reproductive success in a given environment will have a higher-than-expected offspring sex ratio, and parents who possess any heritable trait which increases female reproductive success at a greater rate than male reproductive success in a given environment will have a lower-than-expected offspring sex ratio. Since body size (height and weight) is a highly heritable trait which increases male (but not female) reproductive success, the paper hypothesizes that bigger and taller parents have more sons. The analysis of both surviving children and recent pregnancies among respondents of the National Child Development Survey and the British Cohort Survey largely supports the hypothesis.
Kanazawa
Satoshi
S
Interdisciplinary Institute of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. s.kanazawa@lse.ac.uk
D005075:Biological Evolution; D001824:Body Constitution; D001827:Body Height; D049628:Body Size; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010290:Parents; D012744:Sex Ratio