A new study examining the family trees of over 400,000 people in England over the past 400 years suggests that rates of social mobility have remained remarkably static despite massive societal changes.
The research implies that an individual’s social status is strongly influenced by genetic factors that are passed down through families for generations.
Key facts:
- The study constructed detailed multi-generational family trees for people with rare surnames in England from 1600 to the present day. It then looked at correlations in various measures of socioeconomic status between distant relatives.
- It found that social status is highly persistent across lineages – even fourth cousins, who share a great-great-great-grandparent, have significantly correlated measures of status like income, education level, and occupation.
- The rates of persistence match almost exactly the pattern predicted by a simple genetic inheritance model with high genetic correlation between spouses. This suggests genetics may play a dominant role.
- Despite major societal changes from the 17th century to today, rates of social mobility have remained remarkably constant over time. Social reforms and institutions like public education do not appear to have increased mobility.
Source: Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2023
Social Status & Mobility: Unchanged Over Centuries
The prevailing narrative in the social sciences is that social institutions play a major role in determining social mobility.
The expansion of public education, health care, and other social programs in the 20th century is thought to have increased opportunities and mobility for those born into less affluent families.
However, the massive multigenerational genealogy study challenges this view.
The research constructed elaborate family trees tracing the lineages of over 400,000 people with rare surnames in England from as early as 1600 to the present day.
Distant relatives on the family trees, from siblings to fourth cousins, had their social status measured and compared using metrics like occupation, education level, income, and area deprivation levels.
The results revealed social status is remarkably persistent across lineages, even over centuries.
The correlation in social status only drops by a factor of 0.79 per generation.
In other words, your social status is likely to resemble that of your great-great-great-grandparent.
Even fourth cousins, whose common ancestor lived around 1804, have significantly correlated social outcomes like income, education, and occupation.
This suggests the factors that influence status are passed down families in predictable ways, largely unaffected by historical changes.
Social reforms in the 20th century do not appear to have significantly increased social mobility at the broadest scale, despite improving overall standards of living.
The persistence implies an individual’s opportunities may be heavily shaped by who their ancestors were centuries prior.
Genes Determine Social Status
Perhaps more surprising is that the rates of persistence closely match the pattern predicted by a simple genetic inheritance model.
The correlations between distant relatives can be almost perfectly explained by genetics, with high genetic correlation between spouses.
The genetics of traits like height are known to be passed down in this predictable, additive way.
But few suspected social status might follow the same rules, implying it has a substantial hereditary component.
The study found that the decline in status correlation from parents to children to distant cousins matched almost exactly the pattern expected if the traits were 80% heritable and spouses had a genetic correlation of 0.57.
This high genetic influence is seen even though status is clearly also affected by environmental factors.
The match to genetic inheritance patterns was consistent across all outcomes and time periods studied, even centuries apart.
This suggests genetics may play a dominant role in the persistence of status down family lineages for generation after generation mostly unaffected by social change.
Social Mobility & Genetics: Strong Influence
The study has some surprising implications.
It suggests an individual’s opportunities and social mobility may be substantially influenced by the genetics and status of their ancestors centuries ago.
The social status of your great-great-great-grandparent still seems to matter.
This is despite radical changes in society that might have been expected to increase mobility rates over time.
The introduction and expansion of public schooling, healthcare and social programs in the 20th century appear to not have significantly increased social mobility at the broad scale.
This constancy of mobility rates all the way from pre-industrial England to the present suggests that social reforms and institutions have limited effect on status persistence.
Though overall standards of living have increased substantially, an individual’s status continues to be heavily influenced by genetics and family history.
The genetics also appear to act directly on status, rather than indirectly through family environment.
Sons whose fathers died young showed nearly identical status correlations, suggesting they were not heavily influenced by being raised in a different environment.
Genetics the key mechanism to status persistence?
The study has significant limitations. It examines only rare surname lineages which focus on the males, so misses connections through women.
The measures of status examined also miss many social factors.
The evidence remains circumstantial that genetics is the key mechanism of persistence.
Though correlations match genetic inheritance patterns, direct genetic connections were not measured.
Despite this, the scale of the multi-century genealogical data provides surprising support for the idea that the genetics underlying social success have persisted with remarkable stability through English history.
This implies that social reforms may have less power to increase mobility than hoped for.
Status and opportunity are still heavily shaped by past generations.
Though environments and living standards change, the abilities and characteristics that lead to success appear passed down within families with remarkable persistence.
The findings suggest we may need to look beyond social policy alone to create more opportunity and social mobility.
References
- Study: The inheritance of social status: England, 1600 to 2022
- Author: Gregory Clark (2023)
