2023/08/12 by Boyan Zheng, Jason M. Fletcher, Jie Song +1 · 1 voice
Medicine · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · #Birth, Development, and Health #Genetic Associations and Epidemiology #Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
paper · doi:10.1177/00221465231188166
openalex publication_date 2023/08/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/23
Synthesizing prior gene-by-cohort (G×C) interaction studies, we theorize that changes in genetic effects by social conditions depend on the level of resource constraints, the distribution and use of resources, structural constraints, and constraints on individual choice. Motivated by the theory, we explored several sex-specific G×C trends across a set of outcomes using 30 birth cohorts of UK Biobank data (N = 400,000). We find that genetic coefficients on years of schooling and secondary educational attainment substantially decrease, but genetic coefficients on college attainments only moderately increase. On the other hand, genetic coefficients for education ranks are stable. Genetic coefficients on reproductive behavior increase for younger cohorts. Additional genetic-correlation-by-cohort analysis shows shifting genetic correlations between education and reproductive behavior. Our results suggest that the G×C patterns are highly heterogenous and that social and genetic factors jointly shape the diversity of human phenotypes.