FATHER ABSENCE AND LIFE HISTORY STRATEGY OUTCOMES AMONG MALAYSIAN WOMEN: AN ALMOST ‘EMPTY’ SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

MOLLY ALOYSIUS

doi:10.32890/jps2022.25.3

Authors

MOLLY ALOYSIUS Pusat Pengajian Psikologi Gunaan, Dasar dan Kerja Sosial Universiti Utara Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32890/jps2022.25.3

Keywords:

Malaysia, women, father absence, life history strategy, systematic literature review

Abstract

Understanding about the life history strategy (LHS) of Malaysian women who experienced father absence (FA) during childhood is
limited. This systematic literature review (SLR) pursued a narrative synthesis methodology to investigate the links between FA and six
life history (LH) decision-nodes constitutive of an individual’s LHS: pubertal timing, number of offspring, first marriage timing, first birth timing, sexual debut age, and sexual partner count in the Malaysian female population. It investigated if these decision-nodes clustered together to lie predictably on the slow-to-fast continuum. On July 17, 2022, APA PsycARTICLES, ICTRP, MEDLINE, CINAHL, ProQuest, CT.gov, Scopus, and Embase were searched for studies published prior to December 2021. One cross-sectional study, involving 567 women was found relevant. The review found that FA at any time in childhood was not linked with pubertal age or number of offspring but only FA experienced during late childhood, not early childhood was associated with a swifter age of getting married and giving birth for the first time. It found that FA did not provoke a grouping of LH decision-nodes that were describable as ‘slow’ and ‘fast’. The review yielded no results on how FA relates to sexual debut age and sexual partner count. The Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool (CCAT) examined risk of bias and found the study to be low-risk. These findings have implications for LH decision-making research, fathering research, extant theories on fathers’ influence on daughters’ psychosexuality, LH theory’s postulation of a slow-to-fast continuum, Malaysian family policies, and Malaysian daughters from father-absent homes.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Astuti, R., & Bloch, M. (2010). Why a theory of human nature cannot be based on the distinction between universality and variability: Lessons from anthropology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 83-84.

Belsky, J., Steinberg L., & Draper, P. (1991). Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization. Child Development, 62(4), 647–670.

Bockneck, E. L. (2020). A family systems perspective on father absence, presence, and engagement. In H. E. Fitzgerald, K. v., Klitzing, N. J. Cabrera, J. S. de M., & T. Skjøthaug (Eds.), Handbook of fathers and child development (pp. 105-120). Springer.

Chisholm, J. S. (1993). Death, hope, and sex: Life-history theory and the development of reproductive strategies. Current Anthropology, 34(1), 1–24.

Clancy, K. B., & Davis, J. L. (2019). Soylent is people, and WEIRD is white: Biological anthropology, whiteness, and the limits of the WEIRD. Annual Review of Anthropology, 48(1), 169-186.

Crowe, M., Sheppard, L., & Campbell, A. (2011). Comparison of the effects of using the Crowe Critical Appraisal Tool versus informal appraisal in assessing health research: A randomised trial. International Journal of Evidence‐Based Healthcare, 9(4), 444-449.

Del Giudice, M., Gangestad, S. W., & Kaplan, H. S. (2015). Life history theory and evolutionary psychology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology: Volume 1 Foundations (pp. 88–114). Wiley.

Draper, P., & Harpending, H. (1982). Father absence and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research, 38(3), 255-273.

Ellis B.J. (2004). Timing of pubertal maturation in girls: An integrated life history approach. Psychological Bulletin, 130(6), 920–958.

Empowering women will continue. (2021, March 8). Bernama. https://www.bernama.com/en/general/news.php?id=1938920

Flinn M.V. (1988) Parent–offspring interactions in a Caribbean village: Daughter guarding. In L. Betzig, M. Borgerhoff Mulder, & P. Turk (Eds.), Human reproductive behaviour (pp. 189– 200). Cambridge University Press.

Frankenhuis, W. E., & Nettle, D. (2020). Current debates in human life history research. Evolution and Human Behavior, 41(6), 469-473.

Freud, A. (1931). Female sexuality. In A. Richards and A. Dickson (Eds.) Sigmund Freud on Sexuality, Harmondsworth. Penguin Books.

Gan, S-W., Tan, J-P., Yaacob, S. N. (2015). Parental care and socio-psychological symptoms among Malaysian preadolescents: The effect of cross-gender parent-child relationships. Proceedings of the 7th Generation Global Worship Care and Gender.

Gusenbauer, M., & Haddaway, N. R. (2020). Which academic search systems are suitable for systematic reviews or meta‐analyses? Evaluating retrieval qualities of Google Scholar, PubMed, and 26 other resources. Research Synthesis Methods, 11(2), 181-217.

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010a). The weirdest people in the world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83.

Hewlett, B. S. (2000). Culture, history, and sex: Anthropological contributions to conceptualizing father involvement. Marriage & Family Review, 29(2-3), 59-73.

Higgins J.P.T., Thomas, J, Chandler, J., Cumpston, M., Li, T., Page, M.J, & Welch, V.A. (2019). Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions (2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, S. E., Leyva, R. P. P., & DelPriore, D. J. (2016). Absent fathers and sexual strategies. Psychologist, 29(6), 436-439.

Hirschman, C. (2016). Gender, the status of women, and family structure in Malaysia. Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies, 53(1), 33-50.

Juhari, R., Yaacob, N., & Talib, M. A. (2013). Father involvement among Malay Muslims in Malaysia. Journal of Family Issues, 34(2), 208-227. Law, R. (1979). Optimal life histories under age-specific predation. The American Naturalist, 114(3), 399-417.

Kaplan, H. (1996). A theory of fertility and parental investment in traditional and modern human societies. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, 101(S23), 91-135.

Levine, R. A. (2014). Attachment theory as cultural ideology. In H. Otto & H. Keller (Eds.), Different faces of attachment: Cultural variations on a universal human need (pp. 50–65). Cambridge University Press.

Marphatia, A. A., Ambale, G. S., & Reid, A. M. (2017). Women’s marriage age matters for public health: A review of the broader health and social implications in South Asia. Frontiers in Public Health, 5, 269.

Mell, H., Safra, L., Algan, Y., Baumard, N., & Chevallier, C. (2018). Childhood environmental harshness predicts coordinated health and reproductive strategies: A cross-sectional study of a nationally representative sample from France. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39(1), 1–8.

Muthukarishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C. M., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J., & Thue, B. (2020). Beyond Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) psychology: Measuring and mapping scales of cultural and psychology distance. Psychological Science, 31(6), 678-701.

NGO: Best Gift Fathers. (2021, February 14). New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/02/565490/ngo-best-gift-fathers-can-give-wives-children-being-better-dads

Piang, T., Osman, Z., & Mahadir, N. (2017). Structure or relationship? Rethinking family influences on juvenile delinquency in Malaysia. Asia-Pacific Social Science Review, 17(2), 171-184.

Rickard, I. J., Frankenhuis, W. E., & Nettle, D. (2014). Why are childhood family factors associated with timing of maturation? A role for internal prediction. Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 9(1), 3–15.

Roy, P. K. (1984). Extended kinship ties in Malaysia. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 15(2), 175-194.

Schmitt, D. P., Long, A. E., McPhearson, A., O’brien, K., Remmert, B., & Shah, S. H. (2017). Personality and gender differences in global perspective. International Journal of Psychology, 52(S1), 45–56.

Sear, R. (2017). Family and fertility: Does kin help influence women’s fertility, and how does this vary worldwide?. Population Horizons, 14(1), 18-34.

Sear, R. (2020). Do human ‘life history strategies’ exist? Evolution and Human Behavior, 41(6), 513-526.

Sear, R., Sheppard, P., & Coall, D. A. (2019). Cross-cultural evidence does not support universal acceleration of puberty in father-absent households. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 374(1770), 20180124.

Shenk, M. K., et al. (2013). Does absence matter? A comparison of three types of father absence in rural Bangladesh. Human Nature, 24(1), 76–110.

Sheppard, P., Snopkowski, K., & Sear, R. (2014). Father absence and reproduction-related outcomes in Malaysia, a transitional fertility population. Human Nature, 25(2), 213-234.

Smith-Brown, S. (2015). Perceptions of the role of a father: The perspectives of black women from low-income environments [Doctoral dissertation, Capella University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Uchmanski, J., Kaliszewicz, A., & Hawro, V. (2006). Darwinian demons. Focus on Evolutionary Psychology, 1(9), 8-110.

van Brummen—Girigori, O. J., & Buunk, A. P. (2015). Does father abandonment have consequences for the reproductive strategies of girls? A study in Curaçao. Evolution, Mind and Behaviour, 13(1), 19-35.

Waffenschmidt, S., Knelangen, M., Sieben, W., Bühn, S., & Pieper, D. (2019). Single screening versus conventional double screening for study selection in systematic reviews: a methodological systematic review. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 19, (132).

Williamson, M. (2004). The importance of fathers in relation to their daughters' psychosexual development. Psychodynamic Practice: Individuals, Groups and Organisations, 10(2), 207-219.

Xu, Y., Norton, S., & Rahman, Q. (2018). Early life conditions, reproductive and sexuality-related life history outcomes among human males: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39(1), 40–51.

Webster, G. D., Graber, J. A., Gesselman, A. N., Crosier, B. S., & Schember, T. O. (2014). A life history theory of father absence and menarche: A meta-analysis. Evolutionary Psychology, 12(2), 273–294.

Yap, S. T., Baharudin, R., Yaacob, S., & Osman, S. (2013). Paternal and maternal involvement in Malaysian adolescents: Test of factor structure, measurement invariance and latent mean differences. Child Indicators Research, 7(1), 193-208.

Yeung, W. J. J. (2013). Asian fatherhood. Journal of Family Issues, 34(2), 143-160. eung, W. J. J. (2013). Asian fatherhood. Journal of Family Issues, 34(2), 143-160.

Yuin, F. J. (2016). Effects of parent-adolescent relationship, school engagement, and maladaptive coping on depression among adolescents from divorced families. [Doctoral dissertation, University Putra Malaysia]. University Putra Malaysia Database.

Yusof, T. A. (2020). Divorce rates increase, number of couples marrying dips. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/11/645532/divorce-rates-increase-number-couples-marrying-dips