Birth seasonality, photoperiod, and social change in the Central Canadian Arctic
| Autor: | Richard G. Condon |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1991 |
| Předmět: |
Canada
Sociology and Political Science media_common.quotation_subject Culture Population Population Dynamics Wage Fertility Environmental Science (miscellaneous) Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Ethnicity medicine Population Characteristics Social Change education Life Style Demography media_common Behavior education.field_of_study Ecology Developed Countries Social change Subsistence agriculture Seasonality medicine.disease Light intensity Geography Arctic Inuit Anthropology North America Seasons Americas |
| Zdroj: | Human Ecology. 19:287-321 |
| ISSN: | 1572-9915 0300-7839 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/bf00888980 |
| Popis: | Birth seasonally at high latitudes is a complex phenomenon which is undoubtedly affected by a subtle interaction between environmental rhythmicity (most notably in photoperiod and temperature) and cultural adaption. There is intriguing evidence that human gonadotrophic activity (and hence fertility) may be affected by seasonal fluctuations in light intensity and duration. Nevertheless, cultural factors are important insofar as they mediate between environmental rhythmicity and human fertility/birth patterns. This article examines the distribution of births over several decades in an Inuit community located 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Several shifts in birth seasonality are noted, the most significant of which is a dramatic shift from pronounced seasonality in the 1970s to non-seasonality in the 1980s. Longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork has allowed an examination of social and economic changes accounting for the rather sudden disappearance of birth seasonality. These include increasing reliance upon wage employment and social assistance, decreased dependence upon subsistence hunting and trapping, changing attitudes on the part of young people entering their prime reproductive years, and the introduction of television, radio, and southern-style recreational activities. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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