Heritability of education rises with intergenerational mobility

Per Engzell () and Felix C. Tropf
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Per Engzell: Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom; Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1JD, United Kingdom; Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Felix C. Tropf: Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom; Laboratoire de Sociologie Quantitative, École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Économique, 99120 Palaiseau, France; Department of Sociology, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics, 99120 Palaiseau, France

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, vol. 116, issue 51, 25386-25388

Abstract: As an indicator of educational opportunity, social scientists have studied intergenerational mobility—the degree to which children’s attainment depends on that of their parents—and how it varies across place or time. We combine this research with behavior genetics to show that societal variation in mobility is rooted in family advantages that siblings share over and above genetic transmission. In societies with high intergenerational mobility, less variance in educational attainment is attributable to the shared sibling environment. Variance due to genetic factors is largely constant, but its share as a part of total variance, heritability, rises with mobility. Our results suggest that environmental differences underlie variation in intergenerational mobility, and that there is no tension between egalitarian policies and the realization of individual genetic potential.

Keywords: educational attainment; intergenerational mobility; heritability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nas:journl:v:116:y:2019:p:25386-25388

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