Trivers (1972) “Parental investment is the investment a parent makes in an indiviual offspring that increases it’s chances of survival at cost of the parent’s ability to invest in other offspring.”
The beneifts of parental investment increases survival of the offspring which comes from survival of the fittest developed from the evolutionary theory.
There are sex differences in parental investment because the initial investment made my females is a lot greater than male investment. The female investment in each offspring is substantial. The gamte the female supplies is much bigger than the sperm from the male and the gamate has limited supply. A females reproductive life is alot shorter than a males at around 30 years. The females bond with the baby is much stronger before the birth as she carries the baby for 40 weeks and then has the option to breast feed the baby after birth which mains she is the childs main provide.
In comparisson the males investment in offspring is relatively small.The male has large amounts of sperm and is fertile for life, Each investment requires little time and energy and the best way to maiximise his reproductive sucsess is to have many matings with multiple female partners to carry on his genes.
Maternal investment is an explanantion of why females invest so heavily prior to child birth (internal fertilization), but the reasons why females invest so heavily after childbirth are less obvious. One factor is the gradual increase in brain size over the last two million years,which has resulted in a more difficult childbirth (because of the enlargment of the skull). To compensate for this difficulty, childbirth occurs earlier in development than is ideal, and so humans are born relatively immature compared to other animals. As a result, human are dependent on their parents until at least the teenage years.Human mother must carry their unborn child for nine months and, after birth,