Video summary
A new study analyzing 425,000 people in England over a span of 400 years challenges conventional beliefs about social mobility by demonstrating that genetics play a far more significant role than hard work or environmental factors in determining an individual's status. The research reveals three key findings: first, the inheritance of social status is much stronger than previously thought; second, this correlation has remained constant from the 17th century to today with no increase in mobility; and third, predictions about how correlated people will be based on their outcomes are best explained by genetic transmission rather than shared environments. The data aligns consistently with a simple model of genetics where the number of genes shared between individuals directly explains the similarity in their life outcomes, regardless of whether they lived centuries apart or were separated by vast distances. The methodology relied heavily on genealogical societies that have meticulously tracked specific surnames and lineages for hundreds of years, allowing researchers to test genetic models without direct ancient DNA evidence. A crucial piece of ancillary evidence supporting the genetic hypothesis is the equal influence mothers and fathers exerted on their children's outcomes throughout history until roughly 1880. In a purely social transmission model, one might expect parents' roles to shift based on changing societal norms regarding gender; however, data shows that maternal and paternal backgrounds predict child literacy and occupation with exactly the same weight for both boys and girls across three centuries. This symmetry persists even when accounting for historical contexts where fathers held different social roles or mothers spent more time at home, suggesting that shared genetics rather than parental interaction drives these similarities. Further evidence against environmental determinism includes findings regarding birth order and family size, which typically exert strong influences in modern society but show negligible effects in this long-term dataset. In almost every case, a child's chances for success were identical whether they were the firstborn or the last among ten siblings, despite significant differences in parental attention and resource allocation during crowded 19th-century households. Similarly, family size had no impact on outcomes until around 1880 when fertility control began; prior to that era, random variations in the number of children produced by families did not alter individual trajectories unless wealth was involved. The only notable exception for birth order and gender appeared among the top 1% elite families, where oldest sons inherited more family wealth due to patrilineal inheritance laws, causing a slight deviation from the general pattern observed in the broader population. The study also investigated whether physical presence or interaction with parents is necessary for their influence on an individual's life outcomes. By analyzing cases where fathers died before children reached age ten, researchers found that these early losses made no difference to the correlation between parent and child regarding future success; a person did not fare worse in life simply because they never met their father. Additionally, family size variations up until marriages around 1880 showed random fertility patterns with no attempt at control, yet again produced consistent results across different sibling counts except for wealth distribution dynamics where larger families diluted inherited assets. These observations collectively suggest that the mechanisms driving social outcomes are deeply rooted in genetic transmission rather than the specific environmental conditions or direct interactions often assumed to be primary drivers of success and status inheritance.
Read the full video transcript
what's this new paper of yours about the
inheritance of social
status so the paper looks at 425,000
people in England over the course of 400
years who are all linked together by
descent and
marriage and just asks what
describes how you inherit social
status and it ends up that there are
actually three very interesting aspects
one is that there's a very strong
inheritance of status much stronger than
people conventionally believe and so
there's an underlying correlation that's
really strong the second astonishing
aspect is that that correlation hasn't
changed over the course of 400 years
there's no more social Mobility now than
the was in the 17th century the 18th
century the 19th
century but the most surprising element
of all is that if you want to predict
how correlated people will
be then that prediction is based on
what's their genetic correlation and so
the data is just very consistent with a
really simple model of genetic
transmission where what just matters is
how how many genes do we have in common
that'll explain how much outcome we'll
have in
common uh and
uh that as say is for many people very
surprising and also quite troubling for
a lot of people what is the methodology
of you being able to track genetics
across such a long period of Time how
how are you able to do that presumably
ancestry.com wasn't tracking people 400
years ago right um so the lineage stuff
is is fine and so basically I was using
there there are all these kind of
interesting Societies in Britain and one
is the guil of one name studies and
these are two or three thousand people
who've devoted themselves to following
the history of particular surnames in
England and they've done fantastic jobs
kind of actually tracking people's
genealogy over hundreds of years and so
that part is is is
straightforward but the only thing we
can do here is we don't have we have no
direct genetic evidence here what we can
look at though is what would be the
predictions of a genetic model of
transmission and that has a distinctive
and very clear set of predictions about
how correlated fourth cousins third
cousins second cousins first cousins
will
be uh and and it all depends on how much
assortment there is in marriage how
strong these correlations will remain
and so there's also you know uh
predictions about siblings about Grand
parents
grandchildren and as I say the the very
surprising thing here is that the
predictions of that model are very
consistent with this data for
England uh and it it really is uh you
know so as say so so there's nothing
conclusive here there's nothing
direct but there is just a very
interesting empirical pattern and then
as part of the paper I also can say well
what about other features of inheritance
of status that would be consistent with
genetic transmission do they also hold
and so here's one example is with
genetic transmission mothers should
always have an equal influence as
fathers in terms of outcomes for
children because you get half of your
genetics from each
parent now if we go back to 19th century
England fathers play a very different
social role than they do now
if you look now mothers still actually
spend much more time with children than
do
fathers and so we would actually expect
with social transmission that maybe
sometimes fathers are more important and
other times mothers are much more
important but the data for this lineage
in England is very clear if you want to
predict children's outcomes mothers and
fathers play exactly the same way
and and you know one so early on we have
evidence on the literacy of mothers and
fathers and so that's equally predictive
of what the child literacy would be and
it doesn't matter if it's a boy or a
girl in in those cases it's again
equally predictive for other outcomes
like
occupation we don't have occupations for
women in the 19th century but we can
proxy women's occupations by for example
taking their brother and then taking
their husband's brother and that'll
actually give us a good proxy for what
their occupational status is and then we
can say which predicts child outcomes
better is it the mother's proxy or the
father's proxy and the answer again is
No it's exactly the same weight and so
and that's true as I say all the way
through the last 300 years that mothers
and fathers play exactly the same role
in terms of outcomes except for one
important
outcome and that outcome
is wealth for wealth fathers are much
much more influential than brothers and
that's because wealth tended in England
to flow on the
patrine that men inherited more family
wealth than women did and so what
matters is what your grandfather's
wealth on the pat line as opposed to
your grandfather on on the matal line so
as I say it's there's this this is one
piece of interesting ancillary evidence
a second piece is what's the effect of
birth order on
outcome right and in the social world I
mean I don't know if you have children I
had
three and the oldest child gets much
much more parental attention than the
younger ones do right and talk to anyone
who has children and this is true I mean
the parents a new thing when the first
kid comes along the parents have all the
ideas about how they're going to shape
these kids and so and and empirically we
know that older children get more
attention than younger children so you
might expect that older children will do
much better in terms of social
outcomes uh it turns out in this data no
it's in in almost every case birth order
doesn't matter your chances in life are
the same whether you first or the last
and a lot of the families in the 19th
century there are 10
children and so you would think the 10th
one is coming into this kind of crowded
family there's no more
space my own parents were both from
families of
12 and by the time you know my father
and mother I think both were Number Nine
by the time they came along the housing
is incredibly tight you're sharing a bed
with three siblings and stuff like that
and uh but it turns out it it it it
doesn't matter except
again there's a slight exception for the
top 1% of families in the 19th century
the kind of
elite the oldest son is doing better
than the younger Sons but that's the
only thing that matters so the old and
the older son inherits more but is also
more likely to be sent to University
than the younger Sons so you do see
slight deviations for this but for 99%
of the
population it doesn't matter what birth
order is and then another thing you can
look at is what about family size isn't
that going to influence your outcomes
because the more children there are the
less resources there are the less
parental
attention again uh in the era so there's
an era up to marriages of around about
1880 where in England family size was
random people made no attempt to control
fertility and it is amazing that they
just apparently got married produced
children sometimes there's only one
child you know just the accidents of
fertility in the sample we have there's
one guy who has 27 children from two
different
wives and so you get this enormous
variation in family size and again it
has no effect except for richer families
for wealth and then if you're from a
larger family then your wealth actually
declines right sorry if you're from a
wealthy family and it's larger your
wealth declines because the wealth has
to get divided yeah the if if
inheritance is going to play a large
role in determining your future level of
wealth and there are more people taking
from that pie each sliver of the pie is
smaller yeah right so so as I say so
that's another aspect uh another thing
we can look at is is do you ever need to
meet your parents for them to influence
through social
outcomes and so in a lot of the period
that we're looking at uh you know
parental death is occurring at
relatively early ages for some people in
their 50s and 60s and so about 10% of
the kids their father dies before
they're 10 years
old and we can then say how correlated
are you with your father as a function
of you know you you knew them all the
way up till you're 21 or they died be or
they died before you were 10 it makes no
difference to outcomes you you don't do
any worse in life you're not any less
correlated with your father uh you you
apparently you never need to meet your
parents for them to have exactly the
same influence on your outcomes so so as
I say this study then is based on this
observational d
right and so it doesn't prove anything
directly but I'm working on a book which
is going to have all of this kind of
ancillary
evidence about the nature of social life
and as I say a surprising amount of this
says it's not social transmission it
seems to actually be genetic
transmission that is the consistent
pattern that would explain people's
outcomes in other news this episode is
brought to you by element element is a
tasty electrolyte drink mix with
everything that you need and nothing
that you don't it's a healthy
alternative to sugary electrolyte drinks
and it is the best way that I have
started my morning every single day for
over three years now it contains a
science-backed electrolyte ratio of
sodium potassium and magnesium with no
sugar no coloring no artificial
ingredients or any other junk your
adenosine system that caffeine acts on
isn't active for the first 90 minutes of
the day but your adrenal system is and
salt acts on your adrenal system so if
you want to be more awake want to
regulate your appetite curb cravings and
have better brain health this is the way
to start your day head to drink LM
nt.com slod wisdom to get a free sample
pack of all eight flavors with your
first box plus there is a no BS no
questions asked refund policy so you can
buy it 100% risk-free that's drink LM
nt.com
slod wisdom thank you very much for
tuning in if you enjoyed that clip then
press here for the full podcast episode
go on press it