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How do genes influence socio-economic status?

Genes influence socio-economic status (SES) indirectly and probabilistically by affecting a range of psychological, cognitive, and health-related traits that are valued in society. This genetic influence is complex, resulting from the cumulative effects of thousands of genes, and it operates in constant interaction with powerful environmental factors [1, 2].

The Indirect Nature of Genetic Influence

Genes do not directly code for income or social class. Instead, genetic influence on SES is mediated through heritable traits that have social and economic value [1, 7].

Polygenic Traits: There is no single “gene for wealth.” Rather, SES is influenced by polygenic scores (PGS), which aggregate the small effects of thousands of genetic variants across the genome [4, 7]. The most well-developed of these is the PGS for educational attainment, which is often used as a proxy for genetic predispositions relevant to SES [4].
Cognitive and Personality Traits: The primary pathway for genetic influence is through traits such as cognitive abilities, conscientiousness, openness to new experiences, and risk tolerance [1, 7]. Individuals with genetic predispositions that favor these traits may find it easier to succeed in academic and professional settings, which in turn leads to higher educational attainment, better occupations, and higher income [7, 8].
Education as a Key Mediator: Education is a primary channel through which genetic predispositions are translated into economic outcomes. Studies show that the genetic effects on income are largely accounted for by genetic effects on educational attainment. One major study found that a one standard deviation increase in an individual’s polygenic score for education was associated with a 13% increase in income [7].

Quantifying Genetic Influence

Researchers use twin, family, and genomic studies to estimate the “heritability” of SES components. Heritability refers to the proportion of differences in a trait between individuals in a population that can be explained by genetic differences [5].

Heritability of Earnings and SES: Studies of Swedish twins estimate the heritability of lifetime earnings to be as high as 40% [5]. A large-scale study in Norway found that about one-third of the variation in a composite SES measure (combining education, income, and occupation) was attributable to genetic factors [6].
Intergenerational Mobility: The slow rate of social mobility observed across generations and cultures is partly explained by the inheritance of genes relevant to “social competence.” While economist Gregory Clark, author of The Son Also Rises, does not distinguish between genetic and cultural inheritance, his findings are consistent with a model where heritable traits play a significant role in the persistence of family status over many generations [3].

The Critical Role of the Environment

Genetic predispositions do not operate in a vacuum and their effects are fundamentally shaped by the environment [1, 2].

Gene-Environment Interaction (GxE): The impact of a person’s genetic makeup depends on their environmental circumstances. A study summarized by EurekAlert! found that children with a high genetic predisposition for education benefited disproportionately from growing up in a high-SES family. Conversely, children with a low genetic predisposition from a low-SES family faced a “double disadvantage,” demonstrating that a supportive environment is crucial for genetic potential to be realized [8].
Gene-Environment Correlation (rGE): People’s genes are often correlated with the environments they experience. For instance, parents with genes linked to higher educational attainment are likely to pass those genes to their children and create a home environment that fosters academic success (e.g., having more books, encouraging learning) [1, 8]. This correlation makes it difficult to disentangle the separate effects of genes and environment.

While genes influence factors leading to one’s SES, it is also true that SES—a social construct—has biological and genetic consequences.

Social Stratification: Society determines which traits are rewarded with status and income. These valuations can change over time and across cultures [1, 2].
Assortative Mating: People tend to partner with those of similar SES. Because SES is partly heritable, this “assortative mating” leads to a concentration of genetic variants associated with traits like educational attainment in subsequent generations, which can increase social and economic inequality [2].
Health Outcomes: The link between genes, SES, and health is bidirectional. Genetic variants associated with lower income are also associated with higher risks for health problems like obesity, smoking, and cardiovascular disease. This illustrates how social stratification can create health disparities that have a biological basis [7].

In conclusion, genes are a part of the complex story of socio-economic outcomes. They exert their influence not as a deterministic blueprint, but as one of many factors—alongside family background, wealth, education, and societal structures—that together shape an individual’s life trajectory [1, 2].

Sources

Genes, money, status… and comics - Adam Rutherford, Punctuated Equilibrium. This article explains that genes influence SES indirectly by affecting heritable traits like intelligence and personality. Rutherford strongly cautions against genetic determinism, emphasizing that these genetic influences are probabilistic and that environment and societal structures play a massive role.
Socio-economic status is a social construct with heritable components and genetic consequences - Abdel Abdellaoui & S. Hong Lee, Nature Human Behaviour. The authors argue that while SES is fundamentally a social construct, it has a heritable component (genetic influence) and also produces biological consequences, such as shaping health outcomes and influencing the gene pool through assortative mating.
The Son Also Rises - Wikipedia. This entry summarizes Gregory Clark’s book, which posits that social mobility is much slower than commonly believed due to the strong intergenerational inheritance of an underlying, latent “social competence” that is highly heritable.
What can genes tell us about the relationship between education and health? - Dalton Conley & Jason Fletcher, Social Science & Medicine. This paper discusses the use of polygenic scores (PGS), particularly for educational attainment, as a tool to help disentangle the causal effects of education on health and other life outcomes from confounding genetic and environmental factors.
Heritability of lifetime earnings - Dorian Barth, Nicholas W. Papageorge, & Kevin Thom, The Journal of Economic Inequality. Using data on Swedish twins, this study provides quantitative estimates of the heritability of economic outcomes, finding that genetics account for roughly 40% of the variation in lifetime earnings and 25% of the variation in wealth.
The genetic and environmental composition of socioeconomic status in Norway - Torkild H. Gjerde et al., Nature Communications. This large-scale study of the Norwegian population finds that genetic factors account for approximately one-third of the variation in a composite measure of SES (education, occupation, and income), with the remaining two-thirds attributable to environmental factors.
Associations between common genetic variants and income provide insights about the socio-economic health gradient - W. David Hill et al., Nature Human Behaviour. This genome-wide association study identifies specific genetic variants associated with income and shows that their effects are largely mediated through education. It also links these genetic factors to health outcomes, providing a potential explanation for the socio-economic health gradient.
Education, genes, and social mobility - EurekAlert! (news release summarizing a PNAS study). This release summarizes findings that demonstrate a significant gene-environment interaction. It reports that a child’s genetic predisposition for education and their family’s socioeconomic background interact to influence their chances of upward social mobility.