Social Science Genetics Paris Seminar :

Time: 2:00 pm
Date: 12th of May 2021
Place: Visio

Tobias WOLFRAM (University of Bielefeld & CREST/ENSAE) – “The Heritability of Educational Attainment -Shared Environment, Genetic Nurture and Psychological Mediators”

Abstract : Variation in educational attainment is caused by both genetic and environmental factors. Environmental influences might either be the result of resources shared between children in the same family or due to unsystematic, nonshared factors. We leverage methods from quantitative genetics and jointly analyse educational attainment of German twins, their siblings and parents to disentangle different mechanisms of the shared environment. In line with past findings, genetic effects explain half, the shared environment a quarter of the observed variation. Effects strongly differ for different sources of the shared environment: In contrast to recent molecular-genetic findings concerning genetic nurture, cultural transmission from parent to offspring is weak and nonsignificant. Instead proximal (shared between twins) and distal (shared between all siblings) factors dominate. This points to genetic nurture not measuring vertical transmission but instead acting as a general proxy of the shared environment. By controlling for measured psychological covariates we show that both proximal and distal effects affect educational attainment by influencing noncognitive traits, indicating a socially mediated skill-transfer, in addition to genetic pathways.

Organizers :
Felix TROPF (Pôle de Sociologie du CREST)
Sponsors :
CREST