Health, History, Demography & Development (H2D2): Introduction to IHPI’s Data and Methods Resources & Genetic and Environmental Influences on Schooling and Lifetime Earnings

Patrick Brady

Mr. Brady manages the financial, operational, legal, and technical duties associated with the distribution and management of large, national datasets, and the provision of methodological support for members of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation (IHPI). His talk will provide a brief overview of the data and methodological resources that are available to IHPI members, focusing on several large, national claims databases as well as support for quantitative and mixed methods through consultations with expert faculty.

Lauren Schmitz's Abstract

This study exploits administrative earnings records matched to detailed genetic and sociodemographic data in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to estimate whether the educational environment, as captured by state-level differences in average years of schooling, modify the associations between genetic propensity for educational attainment and individual schooling, and genetic propensity for educational attainment and lifetime earnings. To capture the complex genetic architecture that underlies the bio-developmental pathways, behavioral traits, and evoked environments associated with educational attainment, we calculate polygenic scores (PGSs) for respondents in the HRS derived from a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) for years of schooling. We find evidence that both individual genetic endowment and the state-level educational environment contribute to individual schooling and lifetime earnings, with limited evidence for any interaction between them. The exception is completion of a secondary degree, where we find that individuals educated in states with higher average educational attainment during their primary schooling years were more likely to obtain a GED or high school degree—regardless of genotype—whereas individuals raised in states with below average educational attainment were approximately 7 to 24 percent less likely to obtain a secondary degree than individuals with similar PGSs in higher achieving states.