Abstract:

Across cultures, mothers face trade-offs between childcare and labour. In hunter-gatherer societies, carrying infants during foraging can drain maternal energy and constrain mobility, and childcare duty during foraging may lower mothers’ work efficiency. These costs can be mitigated with other individuals’ help. Yet, it remains unclear how infant presence in foraging groups affects mothers’ mobility and foraging outcomes, such as travel duration, distance, exploration range, net energy expenditure, and net food returns. This study uses detailed GPS, heart rate, and food returns’ data from 359 foraging trips of 23 BaYaka mothers, through Bayesian analyses, to answer those questions. It was found that infant presence increases foraging duration but not travel distance, range, energy expenditure, or food returns. Nevertheless, mothers travel longer distances and explore larger areas when in groups, particularly with more adults and females. It highlights that women might have to travel for longer to compensate for childcare costs, but also that group foraging enables BaYaka mothers to travel greater distances and ranges, regardless of infant presence. As a follow-up study, focal-follows of BaYaka mothers’ foraging trips were conducted. This data will provide insights into the individual and group-level strategies of hunter-gatherer mothers to balance childcare and foraging work.

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Twitter: @AmandineVisine