Synonyms
Definition
How absentee parents during early life shape developmental trajectories (i.e., reproductive timing)
Introduction
A large body of research has shown associations between features of childhood family environment and aspects of well-being in adolescence and adulthood (Belsky et al. 1991; Brumbach et al. 2009; Chang and Lu 2018; Mendle et al. 2009; Rickard et al. 2014; Simpson et al. 2012). One such widely replicated finding is that girls who grow up in father-absent households reach reproductive maturity (usually indexed as age at menarche) at younger ages than girls who reside with their fathers (Belsky et al. 1991; Ellis and Essex 2007; Gaydosh et al. 2018; Mendle et al. 2009; Tither and Ellis 2008). Earlier female reproductive maturation, in turn, has been implicated in a number of downstream health consequences such as higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease (Prentice and Viner 2013), reproductive...
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Chua, K.J., Manson, J.H. (2020). Absence Prior to Puberty. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2037-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2037-1
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