“Examining Social Genetic Effects on Educational Attainment via Parental Educational Attainment, Income, and Parenting”, Jinni Su, Sally I-Chun Kuo, Angel Trevino, Peter B. Barr, Fazil Aliev, Kathleen Bucholz, Grace Chan, Howard J. Edenberg, Samuel Kuperman, Dongbing Lai, Jacquelyn L. Meyers, Gayathri Pandey, Bernice Porjesz, Danielle M. Dick2022-06-06 (heritability)⁠:

Higher parental educational attainment is associated with higher offspring educational attainment.

In this study, we incorporated genotypic and phenotypic information from fathers, mothers, and offspring to disentangle the genetic and socio-environmental pathways underlying this association. Data were drawn from a sample of individuals of European ancestry from the collaborative study on the genetics of alcoholism (n = 4,089; 51% female). Results from path analysis indicated that:

paternal and maternal educational attainment genome-wide polygenic scores were associated with offspring educational attainment, above and beyond the effect of offspring education polygenic score.

Parental educational attainment, income, and parenting behaviors served as important socio-environmental pathways that mediated the effect of parental education polygenic score on offspring educational attainment.

Our study highlights the importance of using genetically informed family studies to disentangle the genetic and socio-environmental pathways underlying parental influences on human development.