Genetic Predisposition of Different Social Status Indicators in Men and Women

Abstract

Abstract Although there is evidence that social status has a genetic basis, it is less known whether the genetic predisposition differs between men and women as well as among different status indicators and whether there are any intercorrelations among predispositions of status indicators. We therefore investigated the genetic predisposition for different indicators of social status separately for men and women, using polygenic scores obtained from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. We used multivariate polygenic regression of 7 different social status indicators on a total of 24 different polygenic scores. We find that in both men and women, wages and education show more associations with polygenic scores than the other status indicators. Also, the genetic predispositions for education and wages are correlated in both men and women, whereas in men more than in women, the genetic predispositions seem to cluster into wages and education on the one hand, and status indicators of position in the hierarchy, on the other hand, with being in a management position somewhere in between. These findings are consistent with an assumption of two different forms of selection pressure associated with either cognitive skill or dominance, which holds true particularly in men. We conclude that the genetic predisposition to higher social status may have changed even though the importance of the cultural trait of social status may have been very constant. Social status may thus be an example of a social trait of constant importance, but with a changing genetic predisposition.