Genetics and occupation-related preferences. Evidence from adoptive and non-adoptive families

The present study sought to determine if genes contribute to variations in preferences for occupation, and if these preferences in turn are associated with social status attainment. The approach taken involved comparing 435 adopted and 10,880 genetic offspring regarding various aspects of the jobs they prefer with seven different measures of parental social status. Consistent with the hypothesis that genes influence both occupational-related preferences and social status, higher average correlations were found between several of these preferences and parental status for the genetic offspring than for the adoptive offspring. For comparative purposes, we also correlated self-rated intellectual ability with parental social status for the genetic and the adoptive offspring. Only one of these measures—high school class rank—was correlated to a significantly greater degree with parental social status among the genetic offspring than among the adoptive offspring. Overall, this study not only suggests that the genes influence various preferences related to occupations, but that these preferences have an effect on the social status attainment. Genes influencing occupational-related preferences may even affect social status attainment to roughly the same degree as do genes for intellectural ability.