While men tend to maintain a woman as their closest confidant throughout their adult lives, women’s focus shifts from their spouse to their adult daughter as they age, according to an analysis of nearly 2 billion cellphone calls and almost half a billion text messages.

The findings, released Thursday by the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that women’s urge to ensure the survival of their genes may be connected with the nature of, and shift in, these intimate relationships…

“It’s not politically correct to talk about some of these things,” Mace said. “If I said, ‘Were you equally close to your son or your daughter?’ you wouldn’t want to answer that question.