Individual and Social Genomic Contributions to Educational and Neighborhood Attainments: Geography, Selection, and Stratification in the United States

Abstract

Research on neighborhood effects draws suggestive links between local spatial environments and a range of social, economic, and public health outcomes. Here, we consider the potential role of genetics in the geography of social stratification in the United States using genomic data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. We find that those with genotypes related to higher educational attainment sort into neighborhoods that are better educated and have higher population densities, both descriptively and using formal school and sibling fixed-effects models. We identify four mechanisms through which this geographic sorting on genetic endowment can magnify social stratification: assortative mating, social-genetic effects, gene-by-environment interactions, and gene-by-social-genetic interactions. We examine the presence of the latter three in our data, finding provisional yet suggestive evidence for social-genetic effects that putatively amount to about one-third of the influence of one's own genomic profile. We find no evidence, however, for the presence of interactions between environments and individual genetic background. Collectively, these findings highlight the potential for geographic sorting on genotype to emerge both as a key methodological concern in population genetics and social science research and also a potentially overlooked dimension of social stratification worthy of future study.

Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals

“…= 0.026) when residualizing on EA and PCs alone, which leaves a substantial remainder of the mate-pair PGI correlation unexplained. This remainder is due to assortment on phenotypes correlated with the EA PGI other than EA, cognitive performance and vocabulary—possibly including various personality traits 42 – 44 —and sources of social homogamy other than genetic ancestry captured by the top 40 PCs—possibly including geographic location at courtship age 45 , 46 , socioeconomic status and social class 47 .…”

A polygenic score for educational attainment partially predicts voter turnout

“…A wealth of studies show the EA PGS is predictive of traits related to voter turnout, and thus suggest potential mediators to be explored in future research. They include socioeconomic status ( 35 , 41 , 45 – 47 ), wealth ( 48 ), labor market outcomes ( 47 , 49 , 50 ), geographic mobility and migration ( 35 , 51 , 52 ), and mate choice ( 53 , 54 ). Health outcomes may be another possible mediator; recent work found that cognitive and physical well-being predict voter turnout ( 25 ), and ref.…”

Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation

“…To measure it, we use the growth of residual real per capita earnings. 23 Based on this definition, the adjusted growth rate of aggregate GDP per worker from 1964 to 2009 was 0.795 percent per year.…”

“…Column 1 shows that based on our model, these three cities account for 5 percent of aggregate GDP growth. Column 2 shows the contribution of these cities to GDP growth from a naïve accounting calculation 23 Since worker quality increases in this period due to increases in human capital, we used residual earnings. Residual earnings control for differences in education (and other worker characteristics).…”