(Comstock)
Pioneers breed like rabbits, or so says a new study published in Science and reviewed in Scientific American. The study analyzed marriage and birth records in Canada’s Charlevoix Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean region (northeast of Quebec City) and found that “families living on the edges of the expansions had 20 percent more children than families living at the settlement’s core. They also married one year earlier, on average, and contributed up to four times more genes to the region’s current population.” Henry Harpending, an anthropologist unaffiliated with the study, compares the behavior of pioneers to plant species:
The notion that pioneers tend to have more babies is consistent with the behavior of other species. Expose a bare patch of land, and the first plants to colonize it will most likely be species that grow quickly, reproduce early, and create many offspring. But these early colonizers eventually cede space to other plants that are slower growing but more efficient at using resources such as water, nutrients and space. Shrubs and trees, for instance, grow slowly and produce fewer offspring, but invest enough energy and resources in those offspring to make them highly competitive in the long run.
Humans are generally more like shrubs and trees: slow growing (children take more than a decade to reach adulthood) and efficient consumers of resources. (Quick-breeding rabbits and mice, by contrast, are the weeds of the mammal world.) But a change in environment can turn a slow grower into a weed. That is what happened, Harpending says, when North American settlers found themselves on the fringes of civilization.
Interestingly, pioneers passed these tendencies on to their children: ”Pioneering ancestors with high fertility had children who also eventually had high fertility, although those effects were moderated by whether the offspring lived on the frontier or within the colony’s core.”
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Cost of Living! The cities in the edges are very likely cheaper to live in and also probably has less stressfull jobs, which allows parents to have more time to spend with their children.
Therefore: Time+Money = Bigger Families!
Have a good one!
Also, consider the added benefit of having more children on the frontier. When it’s you and your homestead, the marginal increase in labor from one child far exceeds its marginal cost.
This is not true when you have a wage-earning job that you cannot employ your child in.
I think I’ve heard also that ethnic minority groups often have higher fertility than the majority. Perhaps this is related to a sense of threat or fear from the majority group?
I can’t really explain a proper causal direction for this. I know that people in high-infant mortality regions also have high fertility, partly because they prepare for the probable death of a child by stocking up on several. Perhaps something similar could exist with minority, insecure, pioneer peoples: minority ? insecure ? fear for children’s safety ? stock up on kids.
Lots of “if” and “perhaps” statements there! I’d be interested to see what other commentators think.
(I tried to use an arrow character in my above post but on my computer screen now they appear to have been replaced with question marks. Even the computer is doubtful about my theory it seems.)
plus, it’s hard to go on a late night condom run when ur out in the boondocks of Charlievous Saganay
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Everyone realizes that the pioneer/shrubs didn’t invade an empty space filled with only mice/weeds, right? I mean there were already First Peoples/shrubs. Pioneer/shrub just killed huge numbers of the First People/shrubs and stole their resources.
Perhaps it should be pioneer/kudzu, the strangling invasive plant that cannot be stopped before obliterating everything in its path.
I, For one, welcome our kudzu overlords.
It’s logic, the same thing happened in the states, its about the homestead/ farm it’s a hard life. The mortality rate is low so he marrage rate is younger, multigenerational families living on the same piece of land. Security, labor, companionship and ready entertainment. So of course! Suprise no.