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. 2020 Mar;29(3):353-362.
doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01357-x. Epub 2019 Jun 1.

Comparing the genetic architecture of childhood behavioral problems across socioeconomic strata in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

A M Hendriks  1   2 , C Finkenauer  3   4 , M G Nivard  3 , C E M Van Beijsterveldt  3 , R J Plomin  5 , D I Boomsma  3   6 , M Bartels  3   6
Affiliations

Comparing the genetic architecture of childhood behavioral problems across socioeconomic strata in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

A M Hendriks et al. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Socioeconomic status (SES) affects the development of childhood behavioral problems. It has been frequently observed that children from low SES background tend to show more behavioral problems. There also is some evidence that SES has a moderating effect on the causes of individual differences in childhood behavioral problems, with lower heritability estimates and a stronger contribution of environmental factors in low SES groups. The aim of the present study was to examine whether the genetic architecture of childhood behavioral problems suggests the presence of protective and/or harmful effects across socioeconomic strata, in two countries with different levels of socioeconomic disparity: the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. We analyzed data from 7-year-old twins from the Netherlands Twin Register (N = 24,112 twins) and the Twins Early Development Study (N = 19,644 twins). The results revealed a nonlinear moderation effect of SES on the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual differences in childhood behavioral problems. The heritability was higher, the contribution of the shared environment was lower, and the contribution of the nonshared environment was higher, for children from high SES families, compared to children from low or medium SES families. The pattern was similar for Dutch and UK families. We discuss the importance of these findings for prevention and intervention goals.

Keywords: Childhood behavioral problems; Netherlands; Socioeconomic status; UK.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Unstandardized and standardized estimates of variance components from the best fitting ACE model with 95% confidence intervals. The top half of the figure represents unstandardized estimates of variance components due to A (additive genetic factors), C (shared environment), and E (nonshared environment) for the different SES strata (i.e., low, medium, and high) for the Netherlands on the left and the United Kingdom on the right, respectively. The lower half of the figure displays the standardized estimates of variance due to A, C, and E across SES strata and countries
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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