Evolutionary economics of human reproduction

The “Leslie matrix” of demography is extended to deal with categories of wealth, rather than age, and is used to build an evolutionary model of the effect of heritable wealth on reproductive decisions. Optimal reproductive strategies are assumed to be those that maximize the long-term rate of growth in the numbers of one's descendents. In poor environments, the optimal strategy is to maximize the wealth inherited by each offspring, which requires limiting their numbers. In rich environments, on the other hand, it pays to maximize the number of offspring. Strong positive correlations between wealth and the number of offspring are predicted only in rich environments. Therefore, evidence that the rich reproduce more slowly than the poor is not inconsistent with the hypothesis that reproductive strategies have been shaped by evolution.