Family Instability and Children’s Genetic Influence on Test Scores: The Role of Parental Separation and Re-Partnering by Mother’s Education

Arno Van Hootegem , Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Tina Baier, WZB, Berlin Social Science Center
Torkild Lyngstad, University of Oslo
Zachary Van Winkle, SCIENCES PO, OBSERVATOIRE SOCIOLOGIQUE DU CHANGEMENT

Recent studies have shown that parental separation lowers children’s genetic influences on education. However, previous research paid little attention to heterogeneous effects by socioeconomic status or family transitions following separation. We estimate the extent that parental separation and re-partnering moderate genetic influences on children’s academic test scores by mother’s level of education. We leverage genotyped data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) linked with administrative registers. This allows us not only to adjust for household economic resources but also genetic nurture effects (indirect genetic effects). In contrast to previous results, we find no evidence that parental separation lowers genetic influences on children’s educational outcomes in Norway. However, findings demonstrate that re-partnering weakens the genetic effect on test scores among lower educated mothers. Our results support the argument that stress related with re-partnering suppresses genetic influences on educational achievement, but highly educated mothers compensate for adverse conditions.

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 Presented in Session 53. Family, Wellbeing and Health