Statistics Significantly fewer cuckoo children than previously thought

Infidelity children are less common than imagined
Up to 20 percent of all children should come from infidelities. Researchers had previously assumed that. Belgian scientists have now presented quite different numbers. According to her research, there are far fewer cuckoo children than has long been claimed. The proportion of deported offspring has thus hardly changed for centuries.

Affair with serious consequences
An infidelity can endanger your health. For example, physicians have pointed to the danger of cardiovascular diseases in this context in the past. Scientists reported last year on a study that concluded that an increased risk of heart attack through sex only in infidelity exist. Of course, cheating can have completely different consequences. Estimates have long been circulating that about one child out of ten does not come from the man who considers himself a biological father. Belgian researchers now present quite different numbers.

Ten to 20 percent of all children should be the result of an infidelity. These numbers are obviously too high. Researchers report that there are significantly fewer cuckoo children than expected. (Image: drubig-photo / fotolia.com)

When fathers unknowingly raise new offspring of other men
So-called cuckoo children - very common in some animal species - are very rare among humans, both earlier and today. As scientists from Belgium report in the journal "Trends in Ecology & Evolution", recent studies show that in human societies very few fathers unwittingly raise the offspring of other men. The proportion of these children is therefore only one to two percent, and thus much lower than often shown. The percentage had been low in historical times and not just with the introduction of contraceptives dropped. According to a news agency dpa, the researchers questioned the well-known view that women through extramarital traffic regularly "buy in" good genes to give their children genetic benefits.

Number of cuckoo children has barely changed
"Media and popular science literature often claim that many alleged fathers raise children who are not biologically their own," said lead author of the study, Maarten Larmuseau of KU Leuven, according to a report by "Phys.org." "Surprisingly, the estimated rates in human populations are quite low, say one to two percent." A few years ago, a team led by Larmuseau had studied how many cuckoo children were among a group of Belgians over the past 500 years. They came to the conclusion that it was just 0.9 percent per generation. The scientists combined genetic and genealogy data for their study. Other researchers had also identified a small number of extramarital children for similar populations in South Africa, Italy, Spain or Mali.

Behavioral researchers find data surprisingly
It is said that the low historical data for behavioral researchers are surprising. Previously, they had assumed that without the availability of contraceptives, the rate was between about ten and twenty percent, the research team explained. The authors assume that the potential costs for the potential evolutionary benefits are simply too high. When the fraud unfolds, violence, separation or diminished commitment to the offspring threatened by the foster father or his relatives. Incidentally, the name cuckoo-child refers to the behavior of the bird of the same name, which lays its eggs in the nest of various songbirds and does not breed on its own. The color and pattern of the cuckoo's eggs are adjusted to that of the host birds. (Ad)