Evolution of family systems and resultant socio-economic structures

TL;DR

This study presents a multi-level evolutionary model of pre-industrial family systems, showing how environmental factors influence the emergence of nuclear or extended families and their inheritance patterns, shaping socio-economic structures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multi-level simulation model linking environmental conditions to family system evolution and socio-economic outcomes, validated with ethnographic data.

Findings

Nuclear families emerge with sufficient land resources.

Extended families form under land scarcity.

Unequal inheritance accelerates wealth accumulation.

Abstract

Families form the basis of society, and anthropologists have characterised various family systems. This study developed a multi-level evolutionary model of pre-industrial agricultural societies to simulate the evolution of family systems and determine how each of them adapts to environmental conditions and forms a characteristic socio-economic structure. In the model, competing societies evolve, which themselves comprise multiple evolving families that grow through family labour. Each family has two strategy parameters: the time children leave the parental home and the distribution of inheritance among siblings. The evolution of these parameters demonstrates that four basic family systems emerge; families can become either nuclear or extended, and have either an equal or unequal inheritance distribution. Nuclear families emerge where land resources are sufficient, whereas extended families emerge where land resources are limited. Equal inheritance emerges where the amount of wealth required for a family to survive is large, whereas unequal inheritance emerges where the required wealth is small. Analyses on the wealth distribution of families demonstrate a higher level of poverty in extended families, and that the accumulation of wealth is accelerated for unequal inheritance. By comparing wealth distributions in the model with historical data, family systems are associated with characteristic economic structures and modern social ideologies. Empirical data analyses using the cross-cultural ethnographic database verify the theoretical relationship between the environmental conditions, family systems, and socio-economic structures. Theoretical studies by this simple constructive model, as presented here, will integrate the understandings of family systems in evolutionary anthropology, demography, and socioeconomic histories.