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

Hypotheses for the evolution of human female life-history characteristics h ave often focused on the social nature of human societies, which allows wom en to share the burden of childcare and provisioning amongst other members of their kin group. We test the hypothesis that child health and survival p m,abilities will Le improved by the presence of kin using a longitudinal da tabase from rural Gambia. We find that the only kill to improve the nutriti onal status of children significantly (apart from mothers) are maternal gra ndmothers, and that this is reflected in higher survival probabilities for children with living maternal grandmothers. There is also evidence that the reproductive status of the maternal grandmother influences child nutrition , with young children being taller in the presence of non-reproductive gran dmothers than grandmothers who are still reproductively active. Paternal gr andmothers and male kin, including fathers, have negligible impacts on the nutritional status and survival of children.