Childcare Correlates with Environmental Factors

(University of Zurich, August 31, 2020)

Cooperative childcare, which involves help from fathers, grandparents, or unrelated group members, characterizes human societies. It allowed us to evolve larger brains, to learn more from one another, and to be more social. But it is unclear why human evolution took this course. In this context, researchers at the University of Zurich recently tested the prominent hypothesis that changing climatic conditions were the trigger, by examining 141 traditional societies worldwide. Following their analysis, the researchers discovered that childcare correlates strongly with environmental factors, like temperature and rainfall – the cooler, drier, and more unpredictable the climate, the more help parents received. It therefore appears that nature’s challenges increase our interdependence. This relationship between environment and childcare is also found among other mammals and birds.