Divorce and the Status of Women

Pearson, Willie; Hendrix, Lewellyn

doi:10.2307/351704

Cited by 20 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In most cases, when women have greater access to political power and resources (e.g., Gender Empowerment Measure), they also tend to have more relational and reproductive freedom (e.g., head their own household, use contraception when married, and divorce more freely). These findings replicate several results from previous anthropological studies (e.g., Pasternak et al 1997;Pearson & Hendrix 1979), though some studies of prein-dustrial cultures have failed to find robust links between all indicators of women's status and sexual freedom. Whyte (1978), for example, found only female-centered social structures (e.g., matrilineality and matrilocality) were associated with more sexual equality and freedom.…”

Section: Why Do Nations Differ In the Magnitude Of Sex Differences Insupporting

confidence: 90%

Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating

2005

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI; Simpson & Gangestad 1991) is a self-report measure of individual differences in human mating strategies. Low SOI scores signify that a person is sociosexually restricted, or follows a more monogamous mating strategy. High SOI scores indicate that an individual is unrestricted, or has a more promiscuous mating strategy. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project (ISDP), the SOI was translated from English into 25 additional languages and administered to a total sample of 14,059 people across 48 nations. Responses to the SOI were used to address four main issues. First, the psychometric properties of the SOI were examined in cross-cultural perspective. The SOI possessed adequate reliability and validity both within and across a diverse range of modern cultures. Second, theories concerning the systematic distribution of sociosexuality across cultures were evaluated. Both operational sex ratios and reproductively demanding environments related in evolutionary-predicted ways to national levels of sociosexuality. Third, sex differences in sociosexuality were generally large and demonstrated cross-cultural universality across the 48 nations of the ISDP, confirming several evolutionary theories of human mating. Fourth, sex differences in sociosexuality were significantly larger when reproductive environments were demanding but were reduced to more moderate levels in cultures with more political and economic gender equality. Implications for evolutionary and social role theories of human sexuality are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Why Do Nations Differ In the Magnitude Of Sex Differences Insupporting

confidence: 90%

Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating

2005

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Few studies have investigated the relationship between women's status and divorce across nations. A noted exception is a study by Pearson and Hendrix (1979), who found, in a sample of 48 tribal societies, that societies with higher female status do tend to have higher divorce rates. (See also Seccombe and Lee, 1986.…”

Section: Women's Status Female Labor Force Participation and Divorcementioning

confidence: 92%

Structural Determinants of the Divorce Rate: A Cross-Societal Analysis

Trent¹,

South²

1989

Journal of Marriage and the Family

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Women’s role in the distribution of food and other resources should be examined separately from their role in direct production. Although economic independence is certainly an important component of “female power”—the “unnamed, underlying variable in many analyses of divorce rates in sociology and anthropology” (Pearson and Hendrix 1979 )—the substitutability of women’s activities and the extent of interdependence with husbands may be just as important in the social valuation of women’s tasks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bioeconomic Approach to Marriage and the Sexual Division of Labor

Gurven

Winking

Kaplan

et al. 2009

Hum Nat

101

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other. We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marriage is still a favorable, efficient outcome under a wide range of conditions. This bioeconomic framework subsumes both cooperative and conflictive views on the sexual division of labor. We test hypotheses concerning marriage markets, assortative mating, and men’s labor motivations among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia and find that: (1) men and women both value work effort in marital partners, (2) marital labor contributions are complementary, (3) work effort is correlated between spouses, (4) total production is correlated with total reproduction, and (5) better hunters have higher fitness gains within marital unions.

show abstract

Divorce and the Status of Women

Cited by 20 publications

References 4 publications

Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating

Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating

Structural Determinants of the Divorce Rate: A Cross-Societal Analysis

A Bioeconomic Approach to Marriage and the Sexual Division of Labor

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About