In the Language of Love, Money Talks

Sept. 30, 2008— -- Money can't buy love, but it seems to earn you more babies. Rich men sire more children than paupers, according to a new study of thousands of middle-aged British men.

Women are more likely to marry men who can provide for them and their children than penniless men, says Daniel Nettle, a behavioural scientist at Newcastle University, UK, who led the new study.

"It's not that if you're richer you'll have more children – if you're richer you're less likely to be childless," he says.

For much of civilization, females have tended to mate with better providers, but many sociologists argue that the industrial and sexual revolutions have immunised people in developed countries such evolutionary pressures.

Census surveys have suggested that wealthier men have fewer kids, says Rosemary Hopcroft, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, who is not affiliated with the study.

No more kidsHowever, these surveys are problematic because they tend to look at household income and tally only a mother's children, she says. The children of divorced and remarried men tend to get left out.

To correct for this bias, Nettle and Newcastle colleague Thomas Pollet looked at previously gathered data on more than 11,000 British men and women, all born between 3 and 9 March 1958, called the National Child Development Study.

The study has tracked income, marriage and fertility of study participants since birth. "It's a great resource," Nettle says.

Now that study participants have entered their late 40s – the study used data from 2004 – nearly all participants have stopped having children.

With carefully collected figures on male and female income and fertility, Nettle and Pollet found that, for men, the more money they make, the more kids they sire on average. Men who earn £10,000 a year fathered one child on average, while fathers who pulled in £50,000-plus sired more than two kids.

But rich men didn't have larger families, rather they are more likely to find mates, Nettle says.