Biological constraints and socioecological influences on women's pursuit of risk and the sexual division of labour

Evolutionary treatments of women's work and the sexual division of labour derive from sexual selection theory and focus on an observed cross-cultural trend: tasks performed by women tend to be more compatible with childcare and produce less economic risk than tasks performed by men. Evolutionar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolutionary human sciences 2020-01, Vol.2, p.e59-e59, Article e59
Main Authors: Starkweather, Kathrine E., Shenk, Mary K., McElreath, Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
behavioural ecology
Birds
Children & youth
Division of labor
Economic activity
Energy resources
Families & family life
Gender differences
household economics
parental investment
Parents & parenting
Scale models
Sex differences
Sexual division of labour
Sexual selection
Trends
Women
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Summary:Evolutionary treatments of women's work and the sexual division of labour derive from sexual selection theory and focus on an observed cross-cultural trend: tasks performed by women tend to be more compatible with childcare and produce less economic risk than tasks performed by men. Evolutionary models emphasize biological sex differences and opportunity costs to understand this pattern of behaviour, yet deviations remain poorly understood. We examine variation in women's work among Shodagor fisher–traders in Bangladesh with the goal of explaining such deviations related to women's work. First, we demonstrate that women's trading produces higher variance returns than men's work – a pattern not previously quantified. Next, we test predictions from the economy of scale model to understand the socioecological circumstances associated with trading. We suggest that relaxing model assumptions around biological constraints may elucidate key circumstances under which members of one gender should systematically engage in work that is incompatible with childcare and/or produces higher levels of economic risk. Results indicate that biological sex differences are insufficient to explain gendered patterns of behaviour but removal of childcare constraints and comparative advantages related to opportunity costs can explain adherence to and deviation from trends in women's work and the division of labour.
ISSN:2513-843X
2513-843X
DOI:10.1017/ehs.2020.60