The role of common genetic variation in educational attainment and income: evidence from the National Child Development Study.

Neil M Davies,George Davey Smith,Frank Windmeijer,Nic J Timpson,Gibran Hemani

doi:10.1038/srep16509

Neil M Davies, George Davey Smith + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep16509

Copy DOI

Abstract

We investigated the role of common genetic variation in educational attainment and household income. We used data from 5,458 participants of the National Child Development Study to estimate: 1) the associations of rs9320913, rs11584700 and rs4851266 and socioeconomic position and educational phenotypes; and 2) the univariate chip-heritability of each phenotype, and the genetic correlation between each phenotype and educational attainment at age 16. The three SNPs were associated with most measures of educational attainment. Common genetic variation contributed to 6 of 14 socioeconomic background phenotypes, and 17 of 29 educational phenotypes. We found evidence of genetic correlations between educational attainment at age 16 and 4 of 14 social background and 8 of 28 educational phenotypes. This suggests common genetic variation contributes both to differences in educational attainment and its relationship with other phenotypes. However, we remain cautious that cryptic population structure, assortative mating, and dynastic effects may influence these associations.

Highlights

Outcome: Father’s age Mother’s age Mother’s weight Father’s height Mother’s height Age father left school Age mother left school Average age parent’s left school Male* Mother smoked* Mother smoked during pregnancy* Father high social class* Paternal grandfather high social class* Maternal grandfather high social class*
We investigated the associations of the three SNPs described above on a range of educational and socio-economic phenotypes, and second we investigated the association of a genome-wide allele score constructed using all the coefficients reported in the educational attainment GWAS, and third we used genome-wide approaches to estimate the chip-heritability of educational attainment and the genetic correlation and bivariate chip-heritability of educational attainment and other phenotypes
We found that three SNPs: rs9320913, rs11584700, and rs4851266 were associated with educational attainment across childhood and years of education obtained by early adulthood

Summary

Introduction

Outcome: Father’s age (years) Mother’s age (years) Mother’s weight (kg) Father’s height (cm) Mother’s height (cm) Age father left school (years) Age mother left school (years) Average age parent’s left school (years) Male* Mother smoked* Mother smoked during pregnancy* Father high social class* Paternal grandfather high social class* Maternal grandfather high social class*. They reported that education and socioeconomic position had a bivariate chip-heritability of 41% This is the proportion of the phenotypic correlation between the two phenotypes that can be explained by shared additive SNP effects. Krapohl and Plomin (2015) found that common genetic variation explained 31% (SE = 0.11) of differences in educational attainment, and 20% (SE = 0.11) of the variation in socioeconomic position. They found that education and socioeconomic position had a bivariate chip-heritability of 50%9. We investigated the associations of the three SNPs described above on a range of educational and socio-economic phenotypes, and second we investigated the association of a genome-wide allele score constructed using all the coefficients reported in the educational attainment GWAS, and third we used genome-wide approaches to estimate the chip-heritability of educational attainment and the genetic correlation and bivariate chip-heritability of educational attainment and other phenotypes

Methods

Results

Conclusion