Sex differences in the relationship between status and number of offspring in the contemporary U.S.

Sociobiology predicts that among social species individual social status will be positively correlated with reproductive success, yet in modern societies the opposite appears to be true. However, in the last five to ten years, a sex difference in the association between some measures of personal status on number of children has been documented in many countries, such that status is positively associated with number of children for men only. Much of this research utilizes European data and there has been little use of data from the U.S. In this paper, analysis of U.S. data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that personal income is positively associated with number of offspring for men, and this is true for men at all levels of education. This is mostly because of increased childlessness among low income men. For women, personal income is negatively associated with number of offspring, and this is true for women at all levels of education. Other measures of status (intelligence and education) are negatively associated with number of offspring for men and women, although the negative association is less for men.