14. Measuring Selection for Quantitative Traits in Human Populations

Quantitative genetics offers a powerful suite of statistical approaches designed to describe and predict rates of phenotypic evolution. Its origin lies at the reconciliation of Mendelian and Biometric Genetics and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection that occurred in the early 20th century. Quantitative genetics has since played a major role in the science of animal and plant improvement since the mid-20th century and in the study of evolution since the 1970s and 80s. The goal of this chapter is to introduce this perspective to demographers, provide guidance on methods intended to characterize natural selection on traits of interest, and to illustrate the flexibility of this approach to deal with complications that are inherent to the study of human populations, such as overlapping generations and social interactions.