ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Cross-cultural evidence does not support universal acceleration of puberty in father-absent households.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Diverse mathematical knowledge among indigenous Amazonians.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Pooled it
- Meta-Analysis of Direct and Indirect Effects of Father Absence on Menarcheal Timing.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- Recalled Adverse Childhood Experiences Predict Behavioral Traits Associated With an Accelerated Life History in Cebu, Philippines.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2026Article
- Timing matters: a prospective investigation of father absence and pubertal timing in girls and boys.Biology of sex differences · 2026Article
- The association between age at menarche and subsequent risk of chronic pain.Frontiers in global women's health · 2026Review
- Adult Children's Timing of Entry into Parenthood : Parental Investment, Education, and Gender.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Coming of age in war: Early life adversity, age at menarche, and mental health.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Review
- Mothers' prenatal distress accelerates adrenal pubertal development in daughters.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- Father absence and pubertal timing in Korean boys and girls.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Evidence for an adolescent sensitive period to family experiences influencing adult male testosterone production.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Family environmental antecedents of pubertal timing in girls and boys: A review and open questions.Hormones and behavior · 2022Review
- Psychosocial and energetic factors on human female pubertal timing: a systematized review.Evolutionary human sciences · 2022Review
- Life history trade-offs associated with exposure to low maternal capital are different in sons compared to daughters: Evidence from a prospective Brazilian birth cohort.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- REPRODUCTIVE TOXICOLOGY: Endocrine disruption and reproductive disorders: impacts on sexually dimorphic neuroendocrine pathways.Reproduction (Cambridge, England) · 2021Review
- Environmental influences on the pace of brain development.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2021Review
- Family Experiences and Parent Personality as Antecedents of Pubertal Timing in Girls and Boys.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2021Article
- Association Between Paternal Separation During Early Childhood and Pubertal Timing Among Girls Using Longitudinal Birth Cohort in Japan.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Article
- Sex-Specific Associations Between Trauma Exposure, Pubertal Timing, and Anxiety in Black Children.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Costs of reproduction and ageing in the human female.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Accelerated reproduction is not an adaptive response to early-life adversity in wild baboons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Father absence in early life has been shown to be associated with accelerated reproductive development in girls. Evolutionary social scientists have proposed several adaptive hypotheses for this finding. Though there is variation in the detail of these hypotheses, they all assume that family environment in early life influences the development of life-history strategy, and, broadly, that early reproductive development is an adaptive response to father absence. Empirical evidence to support these hypotheses, however, has been derived from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) populations. Data from a much broader range of human societies are necessary in order to properly test adaptive hypotheses. Here, we review the empirical literature on father absence and puberty in both sexes, focusing on recent studies that have tested this association beyond the WEIRD world. We find that relationships between father absence and age at puberty are more varied in contexts beyond WEIRD societies, and when relationships beyond the father-daughter dyad are considered. This has implications for our understanding of how early-life environment is linked to life-history strategies, and for our understanding of pathways to adult health outcomes, given that early reproductive development may be linked to negative health outcomes in later life This article is part of the theme issue 'Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.