Back to Search
Start Over
The Effect of Education on the Relationship between Genetics, Early-Life Disadvantages, and Later-Life SES. Working Paper 28750
- Source :
-
National Bureau of Economic Research . 2021. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- This paper investigates whether education weakens the relationship between early-life disadvantages and later-life SES. We use three proxies for advantage that we show are independently associated with SES in middle-age. Besides early, favorable family and neighborhood conditions, we argue that the genes a child inherits also represent a source of advantages. Using a regression discontinuity design and data for over 110,000 individuals, we study a compulsory schooling reform in the UK that generated exogenous variation in schooling. While the reform succeeded in reducing educational disparities, it did not weaken the relationship between early-life disadvantages and wages. This implies that advantaged children had higher returns to schooling. We exploit family-based random genetic variation and find no evidence that these higher returns were driven by genetically-influenced individual characteristics such as innate ability or skills. [Additional support was provided by Open Philanthropy and the USC Population Research Center.]
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- ERIC
- Journal :
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- ED615329
- Document Type :
- Reports - Research