Fatherhood, egalitarianism, and child health in two small-scale societies in the Republic of the Congo

Boyette, Adam H.; Lew-Levy, Sheina; Sarma, Mallika S.; Valchy, Miegakanda; Gettler, Lee T.

Abstract

Objectives
The study goals were to (a) characterize the cultural model of fatherhood among the BaYaka, a community of egalitarian foragers in the Republic of the Congo; (b) test if BaYaka fathers' quality in relation to the cultural model predicts their children's energetic status; and (c) compare the variance in BaYaka children's energetic status to that of children of neighboring Bondongo fisher-farmers, among whom there is less cooperative caregiving, less resource sharing, and greater social inequality.

Methods
We used informal interviews to establish the cultural model of fatherhood, which we used to build a peer ranking task to quantify father quality. Children's energetic status was assessed by measuring height, weight, and triceps skinfold thickness. We then tested for associations between father quality scores derived from the ranking task and children's energetic status using ordinary least squares regression. Equality of variance tests were used to compare BaYaka and Bondongo children's energetic statuses.

Results
The BaYaka described fathers as responsible for acquiring resources and maintaining marital harmony, welcoming others to the community and sharing well with them, and teaching their children about the forest. Agreement on men's quality in these domains was high, but father quality did not significantly predict children's energetic status. BaYaka children had lower variance in energetic status overall compared to Bondongo children.

Conclusions
We suggest that the core BaYaka values and practices that maintain egalitarian social relations and distribution of resources help buffer children's health and well-being from variation in their fathers' qualities in culturally valued domains.

Citation

Boyette, A. H., Lew-Levy, S., Sarma, M. S., Valchy, M., & Gettler, L. T. (2020). Fatherhood, egalitarianism, and child health in two small-scale societies in the Republic of the Congo. American Journal of Human Biology, 32(4), Article e23342. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23342

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Nov 21, 2019
• Publication Date: Jul 28, 2020
• Deposit Date: Sep 11, 2023
• Journal: American Journal of Human Biology
• Print ISSN: 1042-0533
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: e23342
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23342
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1734087