Genetic link between family socioeconomic status and children’s educational achievement estimated from genome-wide SNPs
Open accessAbstract
One of the best predictors of children's educational achievement is their family's socioeconomic status (SES), but the degree to which this association is genetically mediated remains unclear. For 3000 UK-representative unrelated children we found that genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms could explain a third of the variance of scores on an age-16 UK national examination of educational achievement and half of the correlation between their scores and family SES. Moreover, genome-wide polygenic scores based on a previously published genome-wide association meta-analysis of total number of years in education accounted for ~3.0% variance in educational achievement and ~2.5% in family SES. This study provides the first molecular evidence for substantial genetic influence on differences in children's educational achievement and its association with family SES.
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Previous research has suggested that some environmental factors may be genetically influenced (e.g., SES).
“Previous research has suggested that some of these factors may be genetically influenced (e.g., SES; Krapohl & Plomin, 2016)”
From Factors Related to Mean Score Group Differences on Cognitive Ability Tests: A Systematic Review (2025) · cites this paper as Krapohl & Plomin, 2016
Half of the effect of SES on educational achievement is probably genetically mediated.
“Although SES is commonly assumed to represent a purely environmental factor, half of the effect of SES on educational achievement is probably genetically mediated38,39—which emphasizes the need for genetically informed studies on screen time.”
From The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background (2022) · cites this paper as [39]
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- Authors
- Krapohl, E., & Plomin, R.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Krapohl, E
- ORCID
- Venue
- Molecular Psychiatry
- Published
- 2015-03-10
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 437-443
- ISSN
- 1359-4184 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-5578
- PMC
- PMC4486001
- OpenAlex
- W2044538991
- Cited by
- 160
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 5 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 11.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Molecular Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (G0901245)
- Medical Research Council (G0901245, G19/2, previously G0500079, G0500079, 295366)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD044454, R01HD059215, HD059215, R01HD044454)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- academic performance, family socioeconomic status, genetic mediation, polygenic risk score, single nucleotide polymorphisms, years of schooling, children
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Child, Preschool, Educational Status, Family, Female, Genotype, United Kingdom, Humans, Intelligence, Male, Social Class, Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis, Multifactorial Inheritance, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Genome-Wide Association Study
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