IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/thpobi/v88y2013icp68-77.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of cultural transmission in human demographic change: An age-structured model

Author

Listed:
  • Fogarty, L.
  • Creanza, N.
  • Feldman, M.W.

Abstract

Human populations vary demographically with population sizes ranging from small groups of hunter–gatherers with less than fifty individuals to vast cities containing many millions. Here we investigate how the cultural transmission of traits affecting survival, fertility, or both can influence the birth rate, age structure, and asymptotic growth rate of a population. We show that the strong spread of such a trait can lead to a demographic transition, similar to that experienced in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, without using ecological or economic optimizing models. We also show that the spread of a cultural trait that increases fertility, but not survival, can cause demographic change similar to the ‘Neolithic demographic transition’: a period of increased population growth that is thought to have accompanied the transition from hunter–gatherer to agricultural lifestyles. We investigate the roles of vertical, oblique, and horizontal learning of such a trait in this transition and find that compared to vertical learning alone, horizontal and oblique learning can accelerate the trait’s spread, lead to faster population growth, and increase its equilibrium frequency.

Suggested Citation

  • Fogarty, L. & Creanza, N. & Feldman, M.W., 2013. "The role of cultural transmission in human demographic change: An age-structured model," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 68-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:88:y:2013:i:c:p:68-77
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tpb.2013.06.006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040580913000506
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tpb.2013.06.006?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pollak, R.A. & Watkins, S.C., 1993. "Cultural and Economic Approaches to Fertility : A Proper Marriage or a Mesalliance?," Working Papers 93-11, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    2. Michael Gurven & Hillard Kaplan, 2007. "Longevity Among Hunter‐ Gatherers: A Cross‐Cultural Examination," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(2), pages 321-365, June.
    3. Wakano, Joe Y. & Kawasaki, Kohkichi & Shigesada, Nanako & Aoki, Kenichi, 2011. "Coexistence of individual and social learners during range expansion," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 132-140.
    4. Hans-Peter Kohler, 1997. "Learning in social networks and contraceptive choice," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(3), pages 369-383, August.
    5. Nan Li & Marcus Feldman & Shripad Tuljapurkar, 2000. "Sex ratio at birth and son preference," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 91-107.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Denton, Kaleda K. & Kendal, Jeremy R. & Ihara, Yasuo & Feldman, Marcus W., 2023. "Cultural niche construction with application to fertility control: A model for education and social transmission of contraceptive use," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1-14.
    2. Liu, Xiran & Feldman, Marcus W., 2021. "Effects of cultural transmission of surnaming decisions on the sex ratio at birth," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 44-53.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kohler, Hans-Peter, 2000. "Fertility decline as a coordination problem," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 231-263, December.
    2. H Peyton Young, 2014. "The Evolution of Social Norms," Economics Series Working Papers 726, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    3. Silke van Daalen & Hal Caswell, 2015. "Lifetime reproduction and the second demographic transition: Stochasticity and individual variation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(20), pages 561-588.
    4. Gunnar Andersson, 2000. "The Impact of Labour-Force Participation on Childbearing Behaviour: Pro-Cyclical Fertility in Sweden during the 1980s and the 1990s," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 293-333, December.
    5. Tiéfigué Pierrette Coulibaly & Jianguo Du & Daniel Diakité & Olivier Joseph Abban & Elvis Kouakou, 2021. "A Proposed Conceptual Framework on the Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices: The Role of Network Contact Frequency and Institutional Trust," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-12, February.
    6. Monica Das Gupta, 1999. "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite: Exploring the role of governance in fertility decline," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 1-25.
    7. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    8. Jere Behrman & Hans-Peter Kohler & Susan C. Watkins, 2003. "Social Networks, HIV/AIDS and Risk Perceptions," PIER Working Paper Archive 03-007, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    9. Timothy Guinnane & Barbara Okun & James Trussell, 1994. "What do we know about the timing of fertility transitions in europe?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 1-20, February.
    10. Annette Baudisch & James W. Vaupel, 2009. "Senescence vs. sustenance: evolutionary-demographic models of aging," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2009-040, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    11. Monika Mynarska & Anna Matysiak, 2010. "Women's determination to combine childbearing and paid employment: How can a qualitative approach help us understand quantitative evidence?," Working Papers 26, Institute of Statistics and Demography, Warsaw School of Economics.
    12. Durlauf,S.N. & Walker,J.R., 1999. "Social interaction and fertility transitions," Working papers 28, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    13. Shiro Horiuchi & Nadine Ouellette & Siu Lan Karen Cheung & Jean-Marie Robine, 2013. "Modal age at death: lifespan indicator in the era of longevity extension," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 11(1), pages 37-69.
    14. Kabeya Clement Mulamba, 2023. "The role of male partners in modern contraceptive use by women in South Africa: Does space also matter?," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 1-23, June.
    15. Kendzia Michael J. & Zimmermann Klaus F., 2013. "Celebrating 150 Years of Analyzing Fertility Trends in Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(3), pages 406-422, June.
    16. Thomas Baudin, 2015. "Religion and fertility: The French connection," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(13), pages 397-420.
    17. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Xiujian Peng, 2006. "An Econometric Analysis of the Determinants of Fertility for China, 1952-2000," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 165-183.
    18. Hillard Kaplan & Michael Gurven, 2008. "Top-down and bottom-up research in biodemography," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 19(44), pages 1587-1602.
    19. Jere R. Behrman & Hans-Peter Kohler & Susan Cotts Watkins, 2001. "How can we measure the causal effects of social networks using observational data? Evidence from the diffusion of family planning and AIDS worries in South Nyanza District, Kenya," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2001-022, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    20. Robert A. Pollak, 2004. "An intergenerational model of domestic violence," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 311-329, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:thpobi:v:88:y:2013:i:c:p:68-77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/theoretical-population-biology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.