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Fertility

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

  • 34 Accesses

Synonyms

Fecundity; Generativeness; Prolificacy; Puberty; Virility

Definition

The state and quality of being fertile and fruitful or an ability of an individual or couple to reproduce healthy offspring in abundance and of the earth to bear fruit through normal sexual activity.

Introduction

The term “fertility” is taken to indicate biological fertility, the capacity to conceive given unprotected intercourse, in contrast to demographic fertility, the actual number of children. It can be looked at from a functional perspective, by the use of biomarkers, or from a mechanistic viewpoint. Functional fertility refers to how easy or difficult a couple find it to conceive, given that they are having unprotected intercourse, and tends to be assessed by looking at how long this takes, since more fertile couples tend to conceive more quickly (Jofee 2010).

Basic Fertility Concepts

Biological conditions that affect fecundity are obviously important in understanding fertility, and since vast majority...

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References

  • Brauner-otto, S. R. (2014). Environmental quality and fertility. The effects of plant density, species richness, and plant diversity on fertility limitation. Population and Environment, 36, 1–31.

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  • Casey, G., Shayegh, S., Moreno-Cruz, J., Bunzl, M., Galor, O., & Caldeira, K. (2019). The impact of climate change on fertility. Environmental Research Letters, 14, 054007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cummins, N. (2011). Marital fertility and wealth in transition era France 1750–1850. HAL Paris School of Economics, 1–47.

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  • Jofee, M. (2010). What has happened to human fertility? Human Reproduction, 25, 295–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leopold, A. (1986). Sand County Almanac. Random House Digital, Inc.

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  • Miller, B. C. (1987). Marriage, Family, and Fertility. In: Sussman M. B., Steinmetz S. K. (eds) Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Springer, Boston, MA.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. JHPIEGO, Lucknow, India

    Vikas Kaushal

Authors
  1. Vikas Kaushal
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vikas Kaushal .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, MI, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO, USA

    Brian B Boutwell

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Kaushal, V. (2020). Fertility. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1819-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1819-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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