In this paper data from a Tanzanian horticultural population are used to assess whether mother’s kin network size predicts several measures of children’s health and well-being, and whether any kin effects are modified by household socioeconomic status. This hypothesis is further tested with a questionnaire on maternal attitudes towards kin. Results show small associations between measures of maternal kin network size and child mortality and children’s growth performance. Together these results suggest that kin positively influence child health, but the effects (...) are small and it is unlikely that the high prevalence of undernutrition observed in this setting is influenced by the availability of kin. (shrink)

There is broad anthropological interest in understanding how people define “insiders” and “outsiders” and how this shapes their attitudes and behaviors toward others. As such, a suite of hypotheses has been proposed to account for the varying degrees of in-group preference between individuals and societies. We test three hypotheses related to material insecurity, pathogen stress, and views of gender equality among cross-sectional and longitudinal samples of young people in Ethiopia to explore stability and change in their preferences for coethnic spouses. (...) We show that food insecurity is associated with a greater likelihood of intolerant mate preferences. We also find that young people who hold more gender equitable attitudes tended to hold more tolerant mate preferences. Finally, we find no support for the hypothesis that expected pathogen exposure is associated with intolerant mate preferences. Our results most strongly support a material insecurity hypothesis of in-group bias, which assumes that uncertainty over meeting basic needs leads people to favor those in their in-group. As such, our findings join a small but growing group of studies that highlight the importance of material insecurity for understanding tolerance, xenophobia, in-group bias, and favoritism. (shrink)