Despite decades of research, we still lack a clear explanation for the emergence and persistence of inequality. Here we propose and evaluate a marginal utility of inequality hypothesis that nominates circumscription and environmental heterogeneity as independent, necessary conditions for the emergence of intragroup material inequality. After coupling the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) with newly generated data from remote sensing, we test predictions derived from this hypothesis using a multivariate generalized additive model that accounts for spatial and historical dependence as well as subsistence mode. Our analyses show that the probability a society will be stratified increases significantly as a function of proxies of environmental heterogeneity and environmental circumscription. This supports the hypothesis that increasing environmental heterogeneity and circumscription drives the emergence and persistence of inequality among documented societies across the globe. We demonstrate how environmental heterogeneity and circumscription produce situations that limit individuals’ options so that some may find it in their best interest to give up some autonomy for material gain, while others may find it in their best interest to give up some material resources for another individual’s time or deference. These results support the marginal utility of inequality framework and enable future explorations of the ecological conditions that facilitate the emergence of intragroup inequality through time and across the globe.

尽管进行了数十年的研究，我们仍然缺乏对不平等的出现和持续存在的明确解释。在这里，我们提出并评估不平等假设的边际效用，该假设将限制和环境异质性指定为组内物质不平等出现的独立的必要条件。在将标准跨文化样本 (SCCS) 与来自遥感的新生成数据耦合后，我们使用多变量广义加性模型测试从该假设得出的预测，该模型考虑了空间和历史依赖性以及生存模式。我们的分析表明，作为环境异质性和环境限制的代理函数，社会分层的可能性显着增加。这支持了这样一种假设，即日益增加的环境异质性和限制推动了全球有记录的社会之间不平等的出现和持续存在。我们展示了环境异质性和限制如何产生限制个人选择的情况，以便一些人可能会发现为了物质利益而放弃一些自主权符合他们的最佳利益，而另一些人可能会发现为另一个人放弃一些物质资源对他们最有利个人的时间或尊重。这些结果支持不平等框架的边际效用，并使未来能够探索促进群体​​内不平等随着时间和全球范围出现的生态条件。