Here we conducted a large-scale genetic association analysis of educational attainment in a sample of approximately 1.1 million individuals and identify 1,271 independent genome-wide-significant SNPs. For the SNPs taken together, we found evidence of heterogeneous effects across environments. The SNPs implicate genes involved in brain-development processes and neuron-to-neuron communication. In a separate analysis of the X chromosome, we identify 10 independent genome-wide-significant SNPs and estimate a SNP heritability of around 0.3% in both men and women, consistent with partial dosage compensation. A joint (multi-phenotype) analysis of educational attainment and three related cognitive phenotypes generates polygenic scores that explain 11-13% of the variance in educational attainment and 7-10% of the variance in cognitive performance. This prediction accuracy substantially increases the utility of polygenic scores as tools in research.

This article offers two theoretical contributions. First, we develop the concept of administrative burden as an important variable in understanding how citizens experience the state. Administrative burden is conceptualized as a function of learning, psychological, and compliance costs that citizens experience in their interactions with government. Second, we argue that administrative burden is a venue of politics, i.e., the level of administrative burden placed on an individual, as well as the distribution of burden between the state and the individual, will often be a function of deliberate political choice rather than simply a product of historical accident or neglect. The opaque nature of administrative burdens may facilitate their use as forms of "hidden politics", where significant policy changes occur without broad political consideration. We illustrate this argument via an analysis of the evolution of Medicaid policies in the state of Wisconsin. Across three Governorships, the level of burden evolved in ways consistent with the differing political philosophies of each Governor, with federal actors playing a secondary but important role in shaping burden in this intergovernmental program. We conclude by sketching a research agenda centered on administrative burden.3

The results indicate that understanding and alleviating social disparities in health are both theoretically and methodologically quintessential problems of life course analysis and research.

SignificanceGenome-wide association study (GWAS) discoveries about educational attainment have raised questions about the meaning of the genetics of success. These discoveries could offer clues about biological mechanisms or, because children inherit genetics and social class from parents, education-linked genetics could be spurious correlates of socially transmitted advantages. To distinguish between these hypotheses, we studied social mobility in five cohorts from three countries. We found that people with more education-linked genetics were more successful compared with parents and siblings. We also found mothers’ education-linked genetics predicted their children’s attainment over and above the children’s own genetics, indicating an environmentally mediated genetic effect. Findings reject pure social-transmission explanations of education GWAS discoveries. Instead, genetics influences attainment directly through social mobility and indirectly through family environments.

This article seeks to elucidate the relationship between socioeconomic position and health by showing how different facets of socioeconomic position (education and income) affect different stages (onset vs. progression) of health problems. The biomedical literature has generally treated socioeconomic position as a unitary construct. Likewise, the social science literature has tended to treat health as a unitary construct. To advance our understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic position and health, and ultimately to foster appropriate policies and practices to improve population health, a more nuanced approach is required--one that differentiates theoretically and empirically among dimensions of both socioeconomic position and health. Using data from the Americans' Changing Lives Study (1986 through 2001/2002), we show that education is more predictive than income of the onset of both functional limitations and chronic conditions, while income is more strongly associated than education with the progression of both.