“Genetic Architecture of Socioeconomic Outcomes: Educational Attainment, Occupational Status, and Wealth”, 2019-08-01 (; similar):
This study takes a socio-genomic approach to examine the complex relationships among 3 important socioeconomic outcomes: educational attainment, occupational status, and wealth.
Using more than 8,000 genetic samples from the Health and Retirement (HRS) study, it first estimates the collective influence of genetic variants across the whole human genome to each of the 3 socioeconomic outcomes. It then tests genetic correlations among 3 socioeconomic outcomes, and examines the extent to which genetic influences on occupational status and wealth are mediated by educational attainment.
Analyses using the genomic-relatedness-matrix restricted maximum likelihood method show statistically-significant genetic correlations among the 3 outcomes, and provide evidence for both mediated and independent genetic influences. A polygenic score analysis demonstrates the utility of findings in socio-genomic studies to address genetic confounding in causal relationships among the 3 socioeconomic outcomes.