Jason Weeden

Evolutionary discussions regarding the relationship between social status and fertility in the contemporary U.S. typically claim that the relationship is either negative or absent entirely. The published data on recent generations of Americans upon which such statements rest, however, are solid with respect to women but sparse and equivocal for men. In the current study, we investigate education and income in relation to age at first child, childlessness, and number of children for men and women in two samples—one of the general American population and one of graduates of an elite American university. We find that increased education is strongly associated with delayed childbearing in both sexes and is also moderately associated with decreased completed or near-completed fertility. Women in the general population with higher adult income have fewer children, but this relationship does not hold within all educational groups, including our sample with elite educations. Higher-income men, however, do not have fewer children in the general population and in fact have lower childlessness rates. Further, higher income in men is positively associated with fertility among our sample with elite educations as well as within the general population among those with college educations. Such findings undermine simple statements on the relationship between status and fertility.

This study examined both self-rated and objectively measured attractiveness in relation to sexual behaviors and attitudes in an undergraduate sample (N=456). About a quarter of the variance in self-ratings of attractiveness was predicted from combining standard objective measures of attractiveness, including face photo ratings, body mass index, and chest-to-waist ratio for men, and face photo ratings, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio for women. Correlations were investigated among self-rated attractiveness, measured attractiveness, the residual component of self-rated attractiveness (controlling for measured attractiveness), and a number of sexual and related variables. Measured attractiveness correlated moderately with sexual behaviors but not with sociosexuality or sexual moral attitudes, indicating that higher levels of observable attractiveness may serve to increase opportunities for sex with multiple desirable partners without affecting interests in or moral acceptance of casual sex. Self-rated attractiveness correlated positively with sexual behaviors and with sociosexuality, but the correlation with sociosexuality was based entirely on residual factors beyond the objective measures of attractiveness. Other predictors of sexual behavior were discussed in terms of their variable roles in affecting interest in, opportunities for, and social costs of promiscuous sexual activity.