A measurement scale for the parental underinvestment concept.

Abstract

"The concept of parental underinvestment was used by Scrimshaw (1978) to explain infant and childhood mortality where a biological explanation was lacking. This report describes an underinvestment scale developed and tested in the Philippines. No previous scale had been developed to test the underinvestment concept. Reliability and validity of the scale are reported along with recommendations for improvement of the scale and an expansion of the parental underinvestment concept to explain outcomes other than mortality."