Cooperation and conflict: The behavioral ecology of the sexual division oflabor

When it comes to subsistence, men and women in almost all societies do it d ifferently. One long-standing explanation for this sexual division of labor is that men and women pair up to provision offspring and specialize in sub sistence activities in order to maximize household productivity. This model of cooperative parental provisioning has generally been supported by the p roposal that both male and female reproductive success is maximized by prov isioning current offspring rather than deserting them in order to seek new mating opportunities. But recent analyses of bird behavior have often faile d to support this premise. We now know that among many species conflicting reproductive strategies between males and females often result in less than optimal compromises with regard to mating and parenting. This new focus on the role of sexual selection in creating compromise and conflict between t he sexes has the potential to illuminate many puzzling aspects of human par tnerships between men and women. To demonstrate its potential, I compare th e explanatory power of a cooperative provisioning model of sex difference i n human foraging and food sharing with a model incorporating conflicting re productive goals.