Eric Alden Smith, Kim Hill, Frank Marlowe, David Nolin, Polly Wiessner, Michael Gurven, Samuel Bowles, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell
We report quantitative estimates of intergenerational transmission and population-wide inequality for wealth measures in a set of hunter-gatherer populations. Wealth is defined broadly as factors that contribute to individual or household well-being, ranging from embodied forms such as weight and hunting success to material forms such household goods, as well as relational wealth in exchange partners. Intergenerational wealth transmission is low to moderate in these populations, but is still expected to have measurable influence on an individual's life chances...
February 2010: Current Anthropology