I just got to thinking about this after some of the sociobiological musings on the polygamy thread ...
1) The stylised demographic facts appear to be that the birth rate falls as populations become wealthier, that this fall in the birth rate is due in significant measure to an increase in the number of childless households, and that within populations in both the developed and developing worlds, the incidence of childless households increases the further up the income distribution you go.
2) Is this not a very severe problem for most sociobiological theories, or for any theories which rely on "the desire to propagate genes" as being a major determinant of human behaviour? At the very least, it is an anomaly to be explained away, that those members of society who might be thought to be best placed to have large families, tend not to.
The best the Dawkinsites I've spoken to seem to be able to come up with seems to be just-so stories about the management of large and small prides of man-cubs on the plains of Africa. But I don't see how this can explain the decision to have no family at all.
anyone have any ideas? I don't really think of lbo-talk as a den of sociobiologists, but I don't want to subscribe to any actual evolutionary psychology lists, as these things have a way of coming back to haunt one.
dd
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