Socio-economic status is a social construct with heritable components and genetic consequences | Nature Human Behaviour

Mar 26, 2025

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In civilizations, individuals are born into or sorted into different levels of socio-economic status (SES). SES clusters in families and geographically, and is robustly associated with genetic effects. Here we first review the history of scientific research on the relationship between SES and heredity. We then discuss recent findings in genomics research in light of the hypothesis that SES is a dynamic social construct that involves genetically influenced traits that help in achieving or retaining a socio-economic position, and can affect the distribution of genes associated with such traits. Social stratification results in people with differing traits being sorted into strata with different environmental exposures, which can result in evolutionary selection pressures through differences in mortality, reproduction and non-random mating. Genomics research is revealing previously concealed genetic consequences of the way society is organized, yielding insights that should be approached with caution in pursuit of a fair and functional society.

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A.A. is supported by the Amsterdam UMC Fellowship. H.C.M. is supported by Wellcome (grant no. 220540/Z/20/A, ‘Wellcome Sanger Institute Quinquennial Review 2021–2026’). M.K. is supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant nos. 2019-02552 and 2022-02314). M.M. is supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (grant no. 0620) and the John Templeton Foundation (grant no. 62280). F.C.T. is supported by UKRI FINDME (grant no. EP/Y023080/1) and AnalytiXIN, which is primarily funded through the Lilly Endowment, IU Health and Eli Lilly and Company. A.A. and M.C.M. are supported by ESSGN (HORIZON-MSCA-DN-2021 101073237). M.C.M. is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant (no. 835079), a Leverhulme Trust Large Centre Grant LCDS (no. RC-2018-003), ESRC–UKRI Connecting Generations (grant no. ES/W002116/1), EU MapIneq (grant no. 202061645) and Einstein Foundation Berlin (grant no. EZ-2019-555-2). K.J.H.V. is supported by the Foundation Volksbond Rotterdam. P.M.V. is supported by the Australian Research Council (grant no. FL180100072). This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource under application no. 40310. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Abdel Abdellaoui & Karin J. H. Verweij

Human Genetics Programme, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, UK

Hilary C. Martin

Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Martin Kolk

Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden

Martin Kolk

Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, UK

Adam Rutherford

Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

Michael Muthukrishna

Data Science Institute, London School of Economics, London, UK

Michael Muthukrishna

STICERD, London School of Economics, London, UK

Michael Muthukrishna

Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London, London, UK

Felix C. Tropf

Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Felix C. Tropf

AnalytiXIN, Indianapolis, IN, USA

Felix C. Tropf

Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, Nuffield Department of Population Health and Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Melinda C. Mills

Department of Economics, Econometrics and Finance, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

Melinda C. Mills

Department of Genetics, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands

Melinda C. Mills

Centre for Psychology and Evolution, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Brendan P. Zietsch

Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Peter M. Visscher

Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Peter M. Visscher

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A.A. conceived the article, analysed the data, produced the figures and wrote the manuscript. H.C.M., M.K., A.R., M.M., F.C.T., M.C.M., B.P.Z., K.J.H.V. and P.M.V. provided comprehensive feedback on the manuscript.

Correspondence to Abdel Abdellaoui.

M.C.M. is a trustee of the UK Biobank, is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Our Future Health and Lifelines Biobank, and is on the Data Management Advisory Board of the Health and Retirement Survey. F.C.T. is a research fellow at AnalytiXIN, which is a consortium of health-data organizations, industry partners and university partners in Indiana primarily funded through the Lilly Endowment, IU Health and Eli Lilly and Company. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Nature Human Behaviour thanks Alexander Gusev and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Abdellaoui, A., Martin, H.C., Kolk, M. et al. Socio-economic status is a social construct with heritable components and genetic consequences. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02150-4

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Received: 16 June 2024

Accepted: 25 February 2025

Published: 26 March 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02150-4

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