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Science 30 October 2009:
Vol. 326. no. 5953, pp. 682 - 688
DOI: 10.1126/science.1178336
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Research Articles

Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small-Scale Societies

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder,1,*,{dagger} Samuel Bowles,2,* Tom Hertz,3,* Adrian Bell,4 Jan Beise,5 Greg Clark,6 Ila Fazzio,7 Michael Gurven,8 Kim Hill,9 Paul L. Hooper,10 William Irons,11 Hillard Kaplan,12 Donna Leonetti,13 Bobbi Low,14 Frank Marlowe,15 Richard McElreath,16 Suresh Naidu,17 David Nolin,18 Patrizio Piraino,19 Rob Quinlan,20 Eric Schniter,21 Rebecca Sear,22 Mary Shenk,23 Eric Alden Smith,24 Christopher von Rueden,25 Polly Wiessner26

Small-scale human societies range from foraging bands with a strong egalitarian ethos to more economically stratified agrarian and pastoral societies. We explain this variation in inequality using a dynamic model in which a population’s long-run steady-state level of inequality depends on the extent to which its most important forms of wealth are transmitted within families across generations. We estimate the degree of intergenerational transmission of three different types of wealth (material, embodied, and relational), as well as the extent of wealth inequality in 21 historical and contemporary populations. We show that intergenerational transmission of wealth and wealth inequality are substantial among pastoral and small-scale agricultural societies (on a par with or even exceeding the most unequal modern industrial economies) but are limited among horticultural and foraging peoples (equivalent to the most egalitarian of modern industrial populations). Differences in the technology by which a people derive their livelihood and in the institutions and norms making up the economic system jointly contribute to this pattern.

1 Department of Anthropology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
2 Santa Fe Institute and University of Siena, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
3 International University College of Turin, 10121 Turin, Italy.
4 Graduate Group in Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
5 Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, USA.
6 Department of Economics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
7 Center for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
8 Integrative Anthropological Sciences Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
9 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA.
10 Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
11 Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
12 Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA.
13 Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195, USA.
14 School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
15 Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
16 Department of Anthropology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
17 Harvard Academy for International Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
18 Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA.
19 100 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa, ON K1A 0T6, Canada.
20 Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA.
21 Integrative Anthropological Sciences Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
22 Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
23 Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.
24 Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
25 Integrative Anthropological Sciences Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
26 Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

* The first three authors contributed equally to this article.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mborgerhoffmulder{at}ucdavis.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Foundations of Societal Inequality.
D. Acemoglu and J. Robinson (2009)
Science 326, 678-679
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)