Heritability of education rises with intergenerational mobility

As an indicator of educational opportunity, social scientists have studied intergenerational mobility—the degree to which children’s attainment depends on that of their parents—and how it varies across place or time. We combine this research with behavior genetics to show that societal variation in mobility is rooted in family advantages that siblings share over and above genetic transmission. In societies with high intergenerational mobility, less variance in educational attainment is attributable to the shared sibling environment. Variance due to genetic factors is largely constant, but its share as a part of total variance, heritability, rises with mobility. Our results suggest that environmental differences underlie variation in intergenerational mobility, and that there is no tension between egalitarian policies and the realization of individual genetic potential.

作为教育机会的指标，社会科学家们研究了代际流动性——即子女的成就依赖于其父母的程度，以及其随地点或时间的不同而变化的状况。我们结合行为遗传学的研究成果，揭示社会在流动性方面的差异根植于兄弟姐妹间共享的、超越遗传传递的家庭优势。在高代际流动性的社会中，教育成就的差异较少可归因于共享的兄弟姐妹环境。遗传因素引起的差异在很大程度上保持恒定，但其作为总体差异的一部分、遗传性，随着流动性的提升而增加。我们的研究结果表明，环境差异是代际流动性变化的根本原因，且平等主义政策与实现个体遗传潜能之间并不存在冲突。