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Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development

Lauren Gaydosh, Daniel W. Belsky, Benjamin W. Domingue, Jason D. Boardman, Kathleen Mullan Harris
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123711
Lauren Gaydosh
1Duke University School of Medicine Center for Population Health Science Duke University Population Research Institute
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Daniel W. Belsky
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Benjamin W. Domingue
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Jason D. Boardman
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Kathleen Mullan Harris
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Abstract

Evidence shows that girls who experience father absence in childhood experience accelerated reproductive development in comparison to peers with present fathers. One hypothesis advanced to explain this empirical pattern is genetic confounding, wherein gene-environment correlation (rGE) causes a spurious relationship between father absence and reproductive timing. We test this hypothesis by constructing polygenic scores for age at menarche and first birth using recently available genome wide association study results and molecular genetic data on a sample of non-Hispanic white females from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Young women’s accelerated menarche polygenic scores were unrelated to their exposure to father absence. In contrast, earlier first-birth polygenic scores tended to be higher in young women raised in homes with absent fathers. Nevertheless, father absence and the polygenic scores independently and additively predict reproductive timing. We find limited evidence in support of the gene-environment correlation hypothesis.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted April 04, 2017.
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Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development
Lauren Gaydosh, Daniel W. Belsky, Benjamin W. Domingue, Jason D. Boardman, Kathleen Mullan Harris
bioRxiv 123711; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123711
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Father Absence and Accelerated Reproductive Development
Lauren Gaydosh, Daniel W. Belsky, Benjamin W. Domingue, Jason D. Boardman, Kathleen Mullan Harris
bioRxiv 123711; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/123711

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