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44
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Overview

Rebecca Sear is affiliated with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom. Their research primarily spans social sciences with a strong emphasis on gender studies, sociology and political science, demography, experimental and cognitive psychology, and pediatrics, perinatology and child health.

Their work covers several main topics including demographic trends and gender preferences, family dynamics and relationships, evolutionary psychology and human behavior, child nutrition and water access, poverty, education and child welfare, and intergenerational family dynamics and caregiving, as well as birth, development, and health.

Among their recent publications are:

  • "Boys are more likely to be undernourished than girls: a systematic review and meta-analysis of sex differences in undernutrition" (2020), published in BMJ Global Health
  • "Children of the (gender) revolution: A theoretical and empirical synthesis of how gendered division of labour influences fertility" (2020), published in Population Studies
  • "Do human 'life history strategies' exist?" (2020), published in Evolution and Human Behavior
  • "The male breadwinner nuclear family is not the 'traditional' human family, and promotion of this myth may have adverse health consequences" (2021), published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
  • "Understanding Sex Differences in Childhood Undernutrition: A Narrative Review" (2022), published in Nutrients

Frequent co-authors in their research include:

  • Mary K. Shenk
  • John H. Shaver
  • Richard Sosis
  • Laure Spake
  • Anushé Hassan

Rebecca Sear has published multiple papers in several key academic venues, notably:

  • Evolution and Human Behavior (4 publications)
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (4 publications)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (4 publications)
  • Wellcome Open Research (4 publications)
  • Population Studies (3 publications)

They are also an author of books published by established academic presses, including:

  • Human Evolutionary Demography (2024) published by Open Book Publishers
  • Human Behavioral Ecology (2024) published by Cambridge University Press

Best Publications

  • Who keeps children alive? A review of the effects of kin on child survival

    Rebecca Sear;Ruth Mace

  • Intergenerational wealth transmission and the dynamics of inequality in small-scale societies.

    Monique Borgerhoff Mulder;Samuel Bowles;Tom Hertz;Adrian Bell

  • Maternal grandmothers improve nutritional status and survival of children in rural Gambia.

    Rebecca Sear;Ruth Mace;Ian A. McGregor

  • How Much Does Family Matter? Cooperative Breeding and the Demographic Transition

    Rebecca Sear;David A Coall

  • The effects of kin on child mortality in rural Gambia

    Rebecca Sear;Fiona Steele;Ian A. McGregor;Ruth Mace

  • Human behavioral ecology: current research and future prospects

    Daniel Nettle;Mhairi A. Gibson;David W. Lawson;Rebecca Sear

  • Boys are more likely to be undernourished than girls: a systematic review and meta-analysis of sex differences in undernutrition.

    Susan Thurstans;Charles Opondo;Andrew Seal;Jonathan C Wells

  • Evolutionary public health: introducing the concept

    Jonathan C K Wells;Randolph M Nesse;Rebecca Sear;Rufus A Johnstone

  • Matriliny as daughter-biased investment

    Clare Janaki Holden;Rebecca Sear;Ruth Mace

  • The effects of kin on female fertility in rural Gambia

    Rebecca Sear;Ruth Mace;Ian A McGregor

  • Children of the (gender) revolution: A theoretical and empirical synthesis of how gendered division of labour influences fertility.

    Alyce Raybould;Rebecca Sear

  • An evolutionary model of stature, age at first birth and reproductive success in Gambian women

    N. Allal;Rebecca Sear;A. M. Prentice;R. Mace

  • Testing evolutionary theories of menopause.

    Daryl P Shanley;Rebecca Sear;Ruth Mace;Thomas B.L Kirkwood

  • Evolutionary accounts of human behavioural diversity.

    Gillian R. Brown;Thomas E. Dickins;Rebecca Sear;Kevin N. Laland

  • Birth interval and the sex of children in a traditional African population : an evolutionary analysis

    Ruth Mace;Rebecca Sear

  • Do human ‘life history strategies’ exist?

    Rebecca Sear

  • Height, Marriage and Reproductive Success in Gambian Women

    Rebecca Sear;Nadine Allal;Ruth Mace

  • Beyond the nuclear family: an evolutionary perspective on parenting

    Rebecca Sear

  • Understanding variation in human fertility: what can we learn from evolutionary demography?

    Rebecca Sear;David W. Lawson;Hillard Kaplan;Mary K. Shenk

  • Kin and Child Survival in Rural Malawi : Are Matrilineal Kin Always Beneficial in a Matrilineal Society?

    Rebecca Sear

  • Grandma plays favourites: X-chromosome relatedness and sex-specific childhood mortality

    Molly Fox;Rebecca Sear;Jan Beise;Gillian Ragsdale

Frequent Co-Authors

Ruth Mace
Ruth Mace University College London
Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
Monique Borgerhoff Mulder University of California, Davis
Michael Gurven
Michael Gurven University of California, Santa Barbara
Hillard Kaplan
Hillard Kaplan Chapman University
Richard Sosis
Richard Sosis University of Connecticut
Christopher von Rueden
Christopher von Rueden University of Richmond
Frank W. Marlowe
Frank W. Marlowe University of Cambridge
Mark Urassa
Mark Urassa Medical Research Council
Bobbi S. Low
Bobbi S. Low University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Justin R. Garcia
Justin R. Garcia Indiana University

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