Study analyses how genes and education influence socio-economic success

The article, published in the American Journal of Sociology, analyses the extent to which genes influence educational and financial success, pointing out that this impact depends directly on the educational policies to which children are exposed.

“The study shows that the effects of genes on life chances can be changed by policies. The education system influences how genes translate into outcomes, and increasing access to education for everyone reduces genetic differences in life chances,” says Michael Grätz, one of the study’s authors and researcher at Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University.

The study examines how the Education Act of 1944 in England influenced the relationship between genes and socioeconomic outcomes, such as education, income, and wealth. Specifically, this reform abolished tuition fees in secondary education and extended compulsory schooling by raising the minimum school-leaving age by one year. To identify the causal effect of this reform, the study’s authors used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and applied a regression discontinuity design, a quasi-experimental methodology that allows for the estimation of causal effects.

Greatest effect among those with a lower genetic predisposition towards education

The study also shows that those who benefited the most from this educational reform were precisely those with a lower genetic predisposition towards education. “Our intuition is that the reform reduced how much these genes mattered for students’ socio-economic outcomes because it basically removed a barrier to entry and reduced the level of selection inherent in the educational system,” explains first author Alicia García Sierra, a researcher in the Department of Social Sciences at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M).

Family background continued to matter

Another notable revelation of the study is that, while the influence of genes decreased after the reform, the association between parents’ socio-economic status and their children’s socio-economic outcomes did not change. That is, they found no evidence that this relationship varied before and after the law.

“This suggests that there are elements transmitted through the family that a reform is unable to change,” notes the UC3M researcher. “Factors such as the fact that students from wealthier families are more likely to attend extracurricular activities, go to higher quality schools, or have access to other economic resources, constitute advantages of family social class that an isolated educational reform cannot alter,” she comments.

The results cannot be directly applied to today’s school system

The study’s results cannot be directly extrapolated to the current situation, given that free education is much more widespread in almost all Western countries, according to the researchers. Rather, the relevance of the study lies in allowing reflection on what other types of reforms could be considered today and which elements of the educational system continue to operate as barriers to entry and retention for students.

In this regard, the researchers point out that certain educational reforms focused on system quality – such as those centred on improving curriculum quality or reforms that ensure continued equitable and free access – could potentially achieve a similar effect on the relationship between genes and individuals’ socio-economic outcomes.

More about the study

The article Does Expanding Free Secondary Education Moderate the Relationship Between Genes and Socioeconomic Outcomes? Evidence from the Education Act of 1944 in England is published in American Journal of Sociology.

Watch a video in which researcher Alicia García Sierra talks about the study. The video is in Spanish with English subtitles.