Sources of Inequality at Birth: The Interplay Between Genes and Parental Socioeconomic Status
Pietro Biroli, Nicolau Martin-Bassols, Andries T. Marees, Hans van Kippersluis, Cornelius A. Rietveld + 5 more
TLDR
This paper finds strong genetic and socioeconomic links to adult traits but no significant gene-environment interactions, using longitudinal data.
Key contributions
- Analyzed interplay of genes (polygenic indexes) and parental SES on 45 adult traits.
- Leveraged three longitudinal datasets to study long-term health and human capital outcomes.
- Identified strong, independent associations of both genes and parental SES with adult phenotypes.
- Crucially, found no evidence of sizable gene-environment interactions influencing adult traits.
Why it matters
This paper challenges the common assumption of strong gene-environment interactions. It highlights the independent roles of genetics and parental socioeconomic status in shaping adult traits, providing crucial insights for understanding and addressing inequality at birth.
Original Abstract
The start of a human's life can be characterized by two lotteries: that of your genes (nature) and the family you were born into (nurture). These set in motion a trajectory, from birth onward, in health and human capital. Leveraging three longitudinal social-science data sets, we systematically analyze the relationship between an individual's genotype, the socioeconomic status (SES) of the families they grew up in, and their realized traits in adulthood. We proxy an individual's genetic predisposition by polygenic indexes (PGIs) and family SES by a latent factor of parental education and father's (former) occupational status. We then investigate how PGIs, parental SES, and their interaction contribute to later-life outcomes across a range of forty-five socioeconomic, anthropometric, health, behavioral, and personality traits. We find strong genetic and socioeconomic associations with these phenotypes, but no evidence of sizable gene-environment interactions.
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