The role of common genetic variation in educational attainment and labour market outcomes: evidence from the National Child Development Study

Presenter: Neil Davies, University of Cambridge

Author: Neil Davies

Recent studies have reported three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) robustly associated with educational attainment (rs9320913, rs11584700 and rs4851266). There are many unresolved questions. How do these SNPs affect educational attainment? Do they influence important outcomes later in life such as earnings? What proportion of the associations between educational attainment and other phenotypes can be explained by common genetic variation? We provide further evidence about the effects of these variants on adult earnings and education related phenotypes in childhood and adolescence. We used data from 5515 participants of the National Child Development Study. We estimated the associations of the three education SNPs and educational phenotypes at ages 7, 11, 16 and 23, and earnings at age 46. We estimated the proportion of: the variance of each phenotype, and the covariance between the number of O-levels and each phenotype, explained by common genetic variation. The three education SNPs were associated with education-related phenotypes such as test scores across childhood. Common genetic variation explained substantial proportion of widely studied covariances between educational attainment and other educational and socio-economic variables. For example, common genetic variation explained a portion of the covariance between number of O-levels and father’s social class. Variants which have been shown to associate with educational attainment in a large genome-wide association study were associated with educational attainment and preferences in childhood and adolescence. Common genetic variation explains both differences in educational attainment and its covariance with other characteristics. This may have implications for interpreting the results of observational educational studies.