Sources of Inequality at Birth: The Interplay Between Genes and Parental Socioeconomic Status

TL;DR

This study analyzes how genetic predispositions and parental socioeconomic status independently influence a wide range of adult traits, finding strong individual effects but no significant gene-environment interactions.

Contribution

It systematically examines the separate and combined effects of genetics and family SES on adult outcomes using longitudinal data, with no evidence of large gene-environment interactions.

Findings

Strong genetic associations with adult traits.

Strong socioeconomic associations with adult traits.

No evidence of sizable gene-environment interactions.

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.