A study of 30,000 parents across 6 international cohorts reveals that parental genes are linked with the investments that parents make in their offspring, from adopting more healthy behaviours during pregnancy to leaving wealth to adult children. The findings suggest that parental alleles that are not transmitted can affect children through influencing the environments that parents create for their children over the course of their lives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Scarr, S. & McCartney, K. How people make their own environments: a theory of genotype→ environment effects. Child Dev. 54, 424–435 (1983). This review sets out a theory of how experience is directed by genotypes, both of parents who create environments for their children, and of children who evoke and select environments.
Kong, A. et al. The nature of nurture: effects of parental genotypes. Science 359, 424–428 (2018). This paper reports that genetic variants in parents affect child outcomes, even if the child does not inherit the allele.
Lee, J. J. et al. Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals. Nat. Genet. 50, 1112–1121 (2018). This paper reports associations between genetic variants and educational attainment in 1.2 million individuals. These results form the basis for the polygenic score that we used.
Klahr, A. M. & Burt, S. A. Elucidating the etiology of individual differences in parenting: a meta-analysis of behavioral genetic research. Psychol. Bull. 140, 544–586 (2014). This meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies reports the contributions of parent and child genotype to parenting.
Seltzer, J. A. & Bianchi, S. M. Demographic change and parent–child relationships in adulthood. Ann. Rev. Sociol. 39, 275–290 (2013). This review reports that parental assistance to adult children is common and takes various forms, such as financial assistance and help with childcare.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This is a summary of: Wertz, J. et al. Genetic associations with parental investment from conception to wealth inheritance in six cohorts. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01618-5 (2023).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Genes influence parental investment in their child from conception to writing a will. Nat Hum Behav 7, 1253–1254 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01619-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01619-4
- Springer Nature Limited