Expressed mate preferences provide unique windows into the cultural evolution of values and evolved mating psychology. The current study used two research instruments—one ranking procedure and one rating procedure—to examine mate preferences in mainland China. We compared modern Chinese (n = 1060) with Chinese studied a quarter of a century earlier (N = 500). Results revealed several cultural c...

This paper develops a positive theory of the adoption of child labor restrictions (CLR). The key mechanism in our model is an interaction between parental decisions on family size and their preferences for CLR. While parents with few children have little to gain from child labor and are therefore likely to favor CLR, parents with many working children would be expected to oppose CLR. Fertility ...

The recent incorporation of sexual selection theories into the rubric of Evolutionary Psychology has produced an important framework from which to examine human mating behavior. Here we review the extant empirical and theoretical work regarding heterosexual human mating preferences and reproductive strategies. Initially, we review contemporary Evolutionary Psychology’s adaptationism, including ...

Previous research based on analysis of fertility behavior and expressed preferences shows that many Australian parents want both a son and a daughter. However, most respondents to a representative survey of Australians did not approve of IVF or abortion for sex-selection purposes, and most did not think a hypothetical blue or pink pill to select sex of a child should be legal.

Family policy is aimed at neutralising, or at least lessening, the negative impact of psychological, social and economic constraints for forming families and having the desired/greater number of children. Financial and other family policy measures reconcile the objectives of strengthening families, offering equal opportunities to men and women, and increasing the well-being of individuals and f...

Using information collected from focus group discussions with men and women from the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria, we examined how differences in desired number of children among couples are resolved. While fertility preference is related to the value that individuals placed on children as well as perceived their costs and benefits, husbands are favoured as the ‘in charge’ regarding ...