The DOI matches its Crossref record; 14 of the 14 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
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 fitness29.”
From Family-GWAS reveals effects of environment and mating on genetic associations (2024) · cites this paper as [29]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“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]
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“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]
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“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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Citations
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Self-citationGWAS of 126,559 Individuals Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Educational Attainment
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
ADHD Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), Demontis, D., Early Lifecourse & Genetic Epidemiology (EAGLE) Consortium, 23andMe Research Team, Walters, R. K., Martin, J., Mattheisen, M., Als, T. D., Agerbo, E., Baldursson, G., et al. (2019) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0269-7 · Cited by 2,203
Discovery of the first genome-wide significant risk loci for ADHD
(2017) · doi:10.1101/145581 · Cited by 2,203
The nature of nurture: Effects of parental genotypes
Kong, A., Thorleifsson, G., Frigge, M. L., Vilhjalmsson, B. J., Young, A. I., Thorgeirsson, T. E., Benonisdottir, S., Oddsson, A., Halldorsson, B. V., Masson, G., et al. (2018) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aan6877 · Cited by 949
Self-citationGenetic architecture: the shape of the genetic contribution to human traits and disease
Timpson, N. J., Greenwood, C. M. T., Soranzo, N., Lawson, D. J., & Richards, J. B. (2018) · Nature Reviews Genetics · doi:10.1038/nrg.2017.101 · Cited by 434
“Evidence has emerged for a ‘coordinated shift in allele frequency’ 113 in, for example, height 112 and educational attainment 114 across different populations.”
BackgroundSignatures of negative selection in the genetic architecture of human complex traits
Zeng, J., de Vlaming, R., Wu, Y., Robinson, M. R., Lloyd-Jones, L. R., Yengo, L., Yap, C. X., Xue, A., Sidorenko, J., McRae, A. F., et al. (2018) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0101-4 · Cited by 391
Metadata
- 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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