RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Estimating effects of parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills on offspring education using polygenic scores
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.09.15.296236
DO 10.1101/2020.09.15.296236
A1 Perline A. Demange
A1 Jouke Jan Hottenga
A1 Abdel Abdellaoui
A1 Espen Moen Eilertsen
A1 Margherita Malanchini
A1 Benjamin W. Domingue
A1 Eveline L. de Zeeuw
A1 Kaili Rimfeld
A1 Thalia C. Eley
A1 Dorret I. Boomsma
A1 Elsje van Bergen
A1 Gerome Breen
A1 Michel G. Nivard
A1 Rosa Cheesman
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/26/2020.09.15.296236.abstract
AB Understanding how parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence offspring education is vital for educational, family and economic policy. We use genetics (GWAS-by-subtraction) to assess a latent, broad non-cognitive skills dimension. To index parental effects controlling for genetic transmission, we estimate indirect parental genetic effects of polygenic scores on childhood and adulthood educational outcomes, using siblings (N=47,459), adoptees (N=6,407), and parent-offspring trios (N=2,534) in three UK and Dutch cohorts. We find that parental cognitive and non-cognitive skills affect offspring education through their environment: on average across cohorts and designs, indirect genetic effects explain 36-40% of population polygenic score associations. However, indirect genetic effects are lower for achievement in the Dutch cohort, and for the adoption design. We identify causes of higher sibling- and trio-based estimates: prenatal indirect genetic effects, population stratification, and assortative mating. Our phenotype-agnostic, genetically sensitive approach has established overall environmental effects of parents’ skills, facilitating future mechanistic work.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.