Gene-Environment Interactions in Economics

It is often plausible that the strength of the relations between economic conditions and the health of individuals varies by the individual background, notably by the individual genetic characteristics. The analysis of this is not yet widespread and we aim to make major advances in this field by using unique features of the Lifelines data. Results will be informative on preventive interventions and the monitoring of individual health.
Specifically, we focus on two pressing societal challenges. First, we examine young parents' labour market reintegration after childbirth, with a special focus on mothers, given that they usually bear the largest burden of caregiving responsibilities. With an ageing population, exploring underutilised labour resources is pertinent. In the Netherlands, 69% of women work part-time – the highest rate in the EU. The transition from full-time to part-time work is pronounced after the birth of their first child and often persists throughout their careers. The role of genetic liability in women’s work choices is largely unexplored. We consider two channels: sleep and mental health, as it has already been established that sleep deprivation and mental health issues can negatively affect mothers’ employment. We use genome-wide SNP data and existing GWAS summary statistics to calculate polygenic risk scores (PRS) for phenotypes, notably sleeplessness and mental health, and relate them to women’s labour market outcomes before and after childbirth. This, in turn, enables us to examine the correlations between these differences and modifiable lifestyle factors (for example, physical activity and diet), thereby opening the conversation on their potential mitigating effects. Given that Lifelines allows us to also incorporate the analysis of their partners and all parents, we include them in our study because understanding the shared and individual factors affecting both parents provides a more comprehensive picture of family dynamics and labour market participation after childbirth.
The second societal challenge concerns the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), which form a major impediment for economic productivity among the elderly working population. Economic conditions early in life impact the risk of CVD later in life. We aim to understand whether the role of early-life economic conditions varies with the genetic characteristics of an individual. The risk of developing high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia (fat in the blood), the major CVD risk factors, can be estimated using genetic risk scores. We investigate the prevalence of cardiovascular disease from an early-life and genetic point of view. Both genetics and early-life conditions affect CVD risk. In this context, we aim to understand whether the detrimental role of adverse early-life economic conditions on CVD varies with the genetic characteristics of an individual.