Gene-Environment Complementarity in Educational Attainment

Dilnoza Muslimova, Hans van Kippersluis, Cornelius A. Rietveld, Stephanie von Hinke and S. Fleur W. Meddens

Journal of Labor Economics, 2026, vol. 44, issue 3, 759 - 788

Abstract: Firstborns, on average, complete more education than laterborns. We study whether individuals’ endowments measured by genetic information amplify this effect. Our family fixed effects approach exploits exogenous variation in birth order and genetic endowments among 14,850 siblings in the UK Biobank. We find that those with higher genetic endowments benefit disproportionately more from being firstborn compared with those with lower endowments—a clean example of how nature and nurture interact in producing human capital. Since parental investments are a dominant channel driving birth order effects, our results are consistent with complementarity between endowments and investments in human capital formation.

Date: 2026
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