UCL in the News: Urban families getting smaller

It used to be that people worried about infant mortality and had large batches of children, Professor Ruth Mace [UCL Anthropology] argues. Now that infant mortality isn't a big threat, we are shifting toward very small families for the first time in history, driven by urban conditions - expensive housing, crowding and the need for costly education. …

She teaches evolutionary anthropology at UCL and her essay in the current issue of Science, a major research journal, warns that city people have started a cycle in which fewer children drain more and more resources from their parents.

It doesn't pay for urban families to have six semi-educated children who can do farm work. City parents believe it's much better to have one child who's a success - in poor cities and rich ones alike. (She records that rural families in Ethiopia average four more children than families in the capital of Addis Ababa). …

Mace says this intensified nurturing of one or two children just drives the competition harder. "Ever-escalating levels of investment per child are necessary in order for them to compete," she said in an interview. …

 "The whole cost-benefit has changed. When people lived on farms, children were actually quite helpful" in producing food and feeding the family, she said. Now children have become a drain on resources. The more children, the greater the drain. …