Authors
Evelina T Akimova, Agnes Fauske, Ruth Eva Jørgensen, Alexandra Havdahl, Elizabeth C Corfield, Melinda C Mills, Torkild Hovde Lyngstad
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Volume 123. Issue 30. Pages e2532642123. Jul 28, 2026. Epub Jul 20, 2026.
Abstract
Family demographic behavior is often studied as a response to structural conditions or parental characteristics, yet children may themselves shape key family trajectories through evocative gene-environment correlations. This study is based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). By analyzing ~ 40,000 genotyped mother-father-child trios, we test whether children's polygenic indices (PGIs) predict parents' subsequent fertility, partnership dissolution, and transition to marriage. Accounting for parental PGIs, we found limited evidence for evocative effects across most traits. The exception was that higher child ADHD PGI predicted increased parental partnership dissolution (7% [CI = 2.9 to 11.8%] per SD), especially in families with daughters (11% [CI = 4.9 to 18%] per SD), higher socioeconomic status (15% [CI = 7.7 to 23.2%] per SD), and older maternal age at first birth (10% [CI = 3 to 17%] per SD). The main source of variation is the socioeconomic dimension where child-driven effects are stronger in higher-SES families. The study provides evidence for evocative gene-environment correlations in family demography, demonstrating the importance of child-to-parent effects in shaping family trajectories.
PMID:
42475558
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 21 Jul 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 22
- Comments 0