Selection against variants in the genome associated with educational attainment
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Epidemiological studies suggest that educational attainment is affected by genetic variants. Results from recent genetic studies allow us to construct a score from a person’s genotypes that captures a portion of this genetic component. Using data from Iceland that include a substantial fraction of the population we show that individuals with high scores tend to have fewer children, mainly because they have children later in life. Consequently, the average score has been decreasing over time in the population. The rate of decrease is small per generation but marked on an evolutionary timescale. Another important observation is that the association between the score and fertility remains highly significant after adjusting for the educational attainment of the individuals.
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The influence of natural selection is likely strongest for age at first birth in women and number of children since these traits are directly related to evolutionary fitness.
“The influence of natural selection is likely strongest for age at first birth in women and number of children since these traits are directly related to evolutionary fitness29.”
From Family-GWAS reveals effects of environment and mating on genetic associations (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
The Results and Significance passages (page unavailable) link age at first child and number of children to an educational-attainment polygenic score in Icelanders; the association with age at first child is stronger in women than in men. The paper also relates earlier childbearing and more children to evolutionary fitness. It does not establish the broader claim that natural selection is strongest for these traits compared with other traits. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredSince AM is strong for all of these phenotypes, these results suggest that larger LDSC SNP heritability estimates from population effects are primarily due to AM, with the influence of population stratification diminished to the degree that LDSC successfully adjusts for it.
“Since AM is strong for all of these phenotypes31 (AM is likely for age at first birth in women indirectly due to the correlation of age at first birth with EA29,37), these results suggest that larger LDSC SNP heritability estimates from population effects are primarily due to AM6, with the influence of population stratification diminished to the degree that LDSC successfully adjusts for it.”
From Family-GWAS reveals effects of environment and mating on genetic associations (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 0 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 1 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe Icelandic study extrapolates that their results imply a decline of 0.30 IQ point per decade.
“The authors of the Icelandic study extrapolate that their results imply a decline of 0.30 IQ point per decade”
From Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused (2018) · cites this paper as [16]
Polygenic scores that predict education are correlated with IQ and have been shown to correlate negatively with fertility in Icelandic and US data.
“Polygenic scores that predict education are correlated with IQ and have been shown to correlate negatively with fertility in Icelandic and US data (16, 17).”
From Flynn effect and its reversal are both environmentally caused (2018) · cites this paper as [16]
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Decreases in Brain Size and Encephalization in Anatomically Modern Humans
Stibel, J. M. (2021) · Brain Behavior and Evolution · doi:10.1159/000519504 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Menie, M. A. W. O., Younuskunju, S., Balan, B., & Piffer, D. (2017) · Twin Research and Human Genetics · doi:10.1017/thg.2017.37 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
“Consistent with this, it has been found that various POLYCOG negatively predict reproductive success in contemporary Western populations (Beauchamp, 2016; Conley et al., 2016; Kong et al., 2017; Woodley of Menie, Schwartz et al., 2016).”
ResultBenónísdóttir, S., Straub, V. J., Kong, A., & Mills, M. C. (2024) · Nature Aging · doi:10.1038/s43587-024-00733-w · Cited by 20 · see citing works
“…the pursuit of higher education for women has a role, when restricted to an Icelandic subcohort of women with 10 years of education (the legal limit), women with a high education polygenic score still tended to have children later, with an effect that is similar to that of the whole cohort 93 .”
InfluentialSelf-citationA genome-wide meta-analysis identifies 50 genetic loci associated with carpal tunnel syndrome
Skúladóttir, Á., Björnsdóttir, G., Ferkingstad, E., Einarsson, G., Stefánsdóttir, L., Nawaz, M. S., Oddsson, Á., Olafsdottir, T. A., Saevarsdóttir, S., Walters, G. B., et al. (2022) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29133-7 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Self-citationA Simple Test Identifies Selection on Complex Traits
Beissinger, T., Kruppa, J., Cavero, D., Ha, N.-T., Erbe, M., & Simianer, H. (2018) · Genetics · doi:10.1534/genetics.118.300857 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
“Due to improving technologies for sequencing ancient DNA (Berg et al. 2017; Mathieson et al. 2018), and/or by leveraging populations that have benefited from excellent historical record keeping (Kong et al. 2017), genetic data with a temporal component is increasingly available in humans.”
BackgroundWidespread signatures of negative selection in the genetic architecture of human complex traitsPreprint
Zeng, J., de Vlaming, R., Wu, Y., Robinson, M., Lloyd-Jones, L. R., Yengo, L., Yap, C., Xue, A.-L., Sidorenko, J., McRae, A., et al. (2017) · bioRxiv · doi:10.1101/145755 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Mikaelsdottir, E., Thorleifsson, G., Stefánsdóttir, L., Halldorsson, G., Sigurdsson, J. K., Lund, S., Tragante, V., Melsted, P., Rognvaldsson, S., Norland, K., et al. (2021) · Communications Biology · doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02642-9 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
Self-citationKids These Days! Increasing delay of gratification ability over the past 50 years in children
Protzko, J. (2020) · Intelligence · doi:10.1016/j.intell.2020.101451 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
The ancient origins of the wealth of nations
Ashraf, Q. H., Galor, O., & Klemp, M. (2020) · The Handbook of Historical Economics · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3708522 · Cited by 18
Human Capital Mediates Natural Selection in Contemporary Humans
Hugh-Jones, D., & Abdellaoui, A. (2022) · Behavior Genetics · doi:10.1007/s10519-022-10107-w · Cited by 16 · see citing works
“Recent work confirms that natural selection is taking place in modern human populations, using genome-wide analysis (Barban et al. 2016; Beauchamp 2016; Kong et al. 2017; Sanjak et al. 2018).”
BackgroundWootton, R., Lawn, R., Magnus, M., Treur, J., Corfield, E., Njølstad, P., Andreassen, O., Lawlor, D., Munafo, M., Håberg, S., et al. (2023) · BMC Medicine · doi:10.1186/s12916-023-02831-9 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Fieder, M., & Huber, S. (2021) · Evolution and human behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2021.08.001 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Public Policy and Superintelligent AI
Bostrom, N., Dafoe, A., & Flynn, C. (2020) · Ethics of Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190905033.003.0011 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
“…voting preferences as the original, creating an incentive for digital beings to create numerous copies of themselves—or of more resource-efficient surrogates 51 For evidence of the heritability of traits in modern society associated with larger family size, see Milot et al. 2001; Kong et al. 2017.”
BackgroundOn the biodeterministic imagination
Blakey, M. (2020) · Archaeological Dialogues · doi:10.1017/s1380203820000021 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
“Reich points us to two recent studies in his first op-ed (Kong et al. 2017; Okbay, Beauchamp and Benjamin 2016, 540) which, ironically, reveal the power of imagination on the cutting edge of the molecular genetics of intelligence.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialReeve, C., Heeney, M. D., & Menie, M. A. W. O. (2018) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2018.05.036 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Kolk, M., & Barclay, K. J. (2020) · Intelligence · doi:10.1016/j.intell.2020.101514 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Gene-culture co-inheritance of a behavioral trait
Aguilar, E., & Akçay, E. (2016) · bioRxiv · doi:10.1086/698872 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Family Analysis with Mendelian Imputations
Kong, A., Benonisdottir, S., & Young, A. I. (2020) · doi:10.1101/2020.07.02.185181 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Self-citationZhou, X.-Y., Cheung, C., Karasugi, T., Karppinen, J., Samartzis, D., Hsu, Y., Mak, T., Song, Y.-Q., Chiba, K., Kawaguchi, Y., et al. (2018) · bioRxiv · doi:10.3389/fgene.2018.00267 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
A Negative Flynn Effect in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital
Dutton, E., Bakhiet, S. F. A., Ziada, K. E., Essa, Y. A. S., & Blahmar, T. A. M. (2017) · Intelligence · doi:10.1016/j.intell.2017.05.003 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Evaluating indirect genetic effects of siblings using singletons
Howe, L. J., Evans, D. M., Hemani, G., Smith, G. D., & Davies, N. (2022) · PLoS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1010247 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
“First, group-level differences between singletons and non-singletons, such as for parental education [21] or health outcomes [22–24], could have led to differences in sources of genetic association [25].”
BackgroundDeep learning based brain age prediction uncovers associated sequence variants
Jónsson, B. A., Bjornsdottir, G., Thorgeirsson, T., Ellingsen, L. M., Walters, G., Gudbjartsson, D., Stefánsson, H., Stefánsson, K., & Ulfarsson, M. O. (2019) · bioRxiv · doi:10.1101/595801 · Cited by 13
“…increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, male pattern baldness, and several other phenotypes, whereas H2 has been associated with a number of phenotypes including neuroticism [54], fibromyalgia [43], lower educational attainment, increased fe-cundity [39], and smaller intracranial volume 9 (ICV) [33].”
BackgroundSelf-citationUnveiling recent and ongoing adaptive selection in human populations
Gao, Z. (2024) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3002469 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
“Approaches include regression of a measure of reproductive success on PGSs for traits of interest [78,79] or estimation of genetic correlation between traits of interest and proxies for fitness [80,81].”
MethodA Double-Track Pathway to Fast Strategy in Humans and Its Personality Correlates
Gutiérrez, F., Peri, J. M., Baillés, E., Sureda, B., Gárriz, M., Vall, G., Cavero, M., Mallorquí, A., & Rodríguez, J. R. (2022) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889730 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Both findings have been reported before (Nettle and Pollet, 2008; Kong et al., 2017), suggesting that greater reproductive success occurs at the cost of status achievement only for women.”
BackgroundThe Fallacy of Equating the Hereditarian Hypothesis with Racism
Carl, N. (2019) · Psych · doi:10.3390/psych1010018 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Jónsdóttir, G. A., Einarsson, G., Þorleifsson, G., Magnússon, S. H., Gunnarsson, A. F., Frigge, M. L., Gísladóttir, R. S., Unnsteinsdóttir, U., Gunnarsson, B., Walters, G. B., et al. (2021) · Intelligence · doi:10.1016/j.intell.2021.101565 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Self-citationDunkel, C., Menie, M. A. W. O., Pallesen, J., & Kirkegaard, E. O. W. (2019) · Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.1037/ebs0000158 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Vertical pleiotropy explains the heritability of social science traits
Alexander, N., Illius, S., Feyerabend, D., Wacker, J., & Liszkowski, U. (2022) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x22002382 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
GWAS on Birth Year Infant Mortality Rates Provides New Evidence of Recent Natural Selection
Wu, Y.-C., Furuya, S., Wang, Z., Nobles, J., Fletcher, J. M., & Lu, Q.-S. (2021) · medRxiv · doi:10.1101/2021.06.08.21258559 · Cited by 9
Review of At Our Wits’ End: Why We’re Becoming Less Intelligent and What It Means for the Future.
Delhez, J. (2020) · doi:10.1037/ebs0000159 · Cited by 9
Morphometric traits predict educational attainment independently of socioeconomic background
Valge, M., Meitern, R., & Hõrak, P. (2019) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-019-8072-7 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“That evolutionary changes can be rapid is confirmed by a study in Iceland, showing that selection against genetic variants associated with educational attainment can lead to change in the genetic composition of population in few generations [90].”
ResultEnrichment of genetic markers of recent human evolution in educational and cognitive traits
Srinivasan, S., Bettella, F., Frei, O., Hill, W. D., Wang, Y., Witoelar, A., Schork, A. J., Thompson, W. K., Davies, G., Desikan, R. S., et al. (2018) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-018-30387-9 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Zhang, Y.-K., & Santtila, P. (2022) · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · doi:10.1007/s00265-022-03209-2 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Specifically, recent research examining how the education-reproduction link could influence human population genetics found that because of the negative relationship between education and reproduction, selection has favored genetic variants associated with low educational attainments (Beauchamp 2016; Kong et al. 2017).”
BackgroundNatural selection contributes to the myopia epidemic
Long, E., & Zhang, J.-Z. (2020) · National Science Review · doi:10.1093/nsr/nwaa175 · Cited by 7
“These observations are consistent with the previous finding that myopia is highly positively correlated with educational attainment [21], which is in turn associated with delayed reproduction and fewer offspring [22].”
Natural selection on anthropometric traits of Estonian girls
Valge, M., Hõrak, P., & Henshaw, J. M. (2020) · Evolution and human behavior · doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2020.07.013 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“On the other hand, evolutionary changes can sometimes be rapid, as confirmed by an Icelandic study, showing that selection against genetic variants associated with educational attainment can lead to measurable change in the genetic composition of a population in as little as a few generations (Kong et al., 2017).”
BackgroundČvorović, J. (2020) · Journal of Biosocial Science · doi:10.1017/s0021932019000427 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
The genetics of human fertility.
Kim, Y., & Lee, J. J. (2019) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.07.011 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Kolk, M., & Barclay, K. J. (2020) · doi:10.4054/mpidr-wp-2020-010 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“In Iceland, polygenic scores predict a negative association between educational attainment and fertility (Kong et al. 2017).”
BackgroundWang, Y., Zhao, B., Choi, J., & Lee, E. A. (2021) · Mobile DNA · doi:10.1186/s13100-021-00250-2 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“…to alter pre-existing conceptions and resolve controversies [51, 106]. aDNA may contain information explaining non-skeletal human phenotypes and behaviors not preserved in archaeological records [132], and allowing selection events to be inferred from more than thousands of years ago [130, 133].”
BackgroundMenie, M. A. W. O., Rindermann, H., Pallesen, J., & Sarraf, M. (2019) · Twin Research and Human Genetics · doi:10.1017/thg.2019.25 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Studies utilizing PGSs have found negative genetic correlations between cognitive ability measures and fertility (Kong et al., 2017), indicating that at least some genetic variants that tend to raise cognitive ability also tend to depress fertility.”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialSear, R., & Townsend, C. (2023) · Biology Letters · doi:10.1098/rsbl.2023.0390 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Bratsberg & Rogeberg do cite research claiming to find an association between polygenic scores for cognitive ability and fertility [11,12], but polygenic scores do not necessarily capture a causal relationship between genes and a complex trait such as cognitive ability, due to confounding factors…”
BackgroundShould Cognitive Differences Research Be Forbidden?
Meisenberg, G. (2019) · Psych · doi:10.3390/psych1010021 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“A genetic trend for declining intelligence in modern societies had been predicted throughout the last century based on negative correlations of fertility with intelligence and education [68], and has recently been confirmed genetically [69,70].”
BackgroundAlexandre, A., Maria, K. D., Philipp, K., Mauro, P., Maddalena, Q., Barbara, R., & Guy, V. D. E. (2019) · doi:10.2760/948992 · Cited by 4
Sarraf, M. A., Woodley of Menie, M. A., & Peñaherrera-Aguirre, M. (2023) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2022.111969 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Intelligence in Multiple Dimensions: Evolutionary Framework for the Study of Human Cognition
Geary, D. C. (2026) · Intelligence & Cognitive Abilities · doi:10.65550/001c.154815 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Changes in polygenic burden for psychiatric disorders across two decades of birth cohorts
Lousdal, M. L., LaBianca, S., Agerbo, E., Albiñana, C., Vilhjálmsson, B. J., McGrath, J. J., Schork, A. J., & Plana‐Ripoll, O. (2025) · Nature Mental Health · doi:10.1038/s44220-025-00478-4 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Likewise, Kong and colleagues 27 found that education PGS decreased in birth cohorts born between 1910 and 1990 in Iceland.”
Natural Selection Across Three Generations of Americans
Hugh-Jones, D., & Edwards, T. (2024) · Behavior Genetics · doi:10.1007/s10519-024-10189-8 · Cited by 3
“For example, Kong et al. (2017) provide an estimate of − 0.9 IQ points every 30 years in Iceland, compared to our − 0.6 points per generation.”
InfluentialAndersson, L., Jalovaara, M., Saarela, J., & Uggla, C. (2023) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · doi:10.1098/rspb.2023.1061 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Sexually antagonistic selection on educational attainment and body size in Estonian children
Valge, M., Meitern, R., & Hõrak, P. (2022) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/nyas.14859 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“The main findings of this study were that (1) direction of selection on educational attainmentwas sexually antagonistic; (2) selection on educational attainment occurred via different parity transitions in boys and girls; (3) selection on anthropometric traits occurred almost exclu-”
BackgroundPereira, R. D. (2021) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.1101/2021.12.14.472565 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Without properly accounting for parental PGS, the child’s PGS will partially capture parental characteristics that shape the rearing environment (Koellinger and Harden, 2018; Kong et al., 2017).”
BackgroundThe dysgenics objection to longtermism
de Vries, B. (2024) · Futures · doi:10.1016/j.futures.2024.103417
- Authors
- Kong, A., Frigge, M. L., Thorleifsson, G., Stefansson, H., Young, A. I., Zink, F., Jonsdottir, G. A., Okbay, A., Sulem, P., Masson, G., Gudbjartsson, D. F., Helgason, A., Bjornsdottir, G., Thorsteinsdottir, U., & Stefansson, K.
- Affiliations
- deCODE Genetics (Iceland) (IS)
- deCODE genetics/Amgen Inc., Reykjavik 101, Iceland;
- Centre for Human Genetics (GB)
- Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2017-01-17
- Volume
- 114
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- E727-E732
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC5293043
- OpenAlex
- W2575032714
- Cited by
- 168
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 16
- FWCI
- 14.48
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion)
- RePub (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePub (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
- Keywords
- educational attainment, genetic variants, polygenic risk score, fertility, fertility decline, age at childbearing, natural selection, genetic drift
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Educational Status, Female, Fertility, Genotype, Humans, Iceland, Intelligence, Male, Genetic Variation, Genome, Human, Young Adult
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