Menopause: A comparative life history perspective

Abstract

As a life history characteristic of human females, menopause is universal, it occurs halfway through the maximum lifespan of the species, and it consistently occurs at approximately age 50 in different populations. Menopause is fundamentally distinct from the reproductive senescence that has been described for a very small number of very old individual alloprimates. Menopause is not a recent historical artifact. As a species universal showing little variation in occurrence across contemporary populations, it must be understood in evolutionary terms. Supporters of the “grandmother hypothesis” explain menopause as an adaptive feature in itself. Others see menopause as a byproduct of the increased lifespan of Homo sapiens. Plieotropy theory may help to explain menopause in broader mammalian terms. Copyright © 1991 Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company