Intergenerational Education Persistence: Evidence from Molecular Genetic Data

Rita Dias Pereira and Hans van Kippersluis
Additional contact information
Rita Dias Pereira: NOVA University Lisbon
Hans van Kippersluis: Erasmus University Rotterdam

No 25-057/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: This paper exploits molecular genetic data to quantify genetic confounding in parent-child educational outcomes. We develop a model of the intergenerational transmission of education based on insights from the literature on social science genetics. The model distinguishes between two types of genetic confounding. First, narrow genetic confounding reflects the direct transmission of genetic predisposition towards education. Second, broad genetic confounding captures direct genetic transmission as well as genetic nurture, i.e., an influence of parental genes on children's outcome through the family environment. Next, we use the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) data to decompose the association between parental years of education and their offspring's grades on Key Stage 4 national exams. To proxy genetic endowments, we construct Educational Attainment Polygenic Indices (EA PGIs) for parents and children. To correct for measurement error, we use Obviously-Related Instrumental Variables (ORIV) based on two independent PGIs. The results suggest that `broad genetic confounding' explains 30-45% of the parent-child educational association, and `narrow genetic confounding' 18-33%. We find no meaningful differences between mothers and fathers. Using our model, we compare our estimates to twin and adoptee designs, and show how molecular genetic approaches can recover both broad and narrow genetic confounding under plausibly weaker assumptions and with arguably greater external validity.

Keywords: ALSPAC; Education; Intergenerational Mobility; Polygenic Index; Genetic endowments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-26
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/25057.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20250057

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().