Reference : Maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital
Scientific journals : Article
Business & economic sciences : Special economic topics (health, labor, transportation…)
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/53617
Maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital
English
Menta, Giorgia[Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Luxembourg]
Lepinteur, Anthony[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) >]
Clark, Andrew[Paris School of Economics - CNRS, France and University of Luxembourg]
d'Ambrosio, Conchita[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS) >]
[en] We here address the causal relationship between the maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital using UK birth-cohort data. We find that an increase of one standard deviation (SD) in the maternal polygenic risk score for depression reduces their children’s cognitive and non-cognitive skill scores by 5 to 7% of a SD throughout adolescence. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests addressing, among others, concerns about pleiotropy and dynastic effects. Our Gelbach decomposition analysis suggests that the strongest mediator is genetic nurture (through maternal depression itself), with genetic inheritance playing only a marginal role.