19 Mar 2026
Speaker: Zachary Van Winkle — Sciences Po, Centre for Research on Social Inequalities, CNRS, Paris
Venue:
- Thursday, 19 March 2026
- 13:00-14:00
- Online: The Teams link will be provided upon registration (please fill out the form below)
Abstract:
Contemporary family research has become increasingly interested in understanding how genes and environments interact to shape individual outcomes across the life course. For example, recent studies have shown that parental separation lowers children’s genetic influences on education. However, previous research paid little attention to heterogeneous effects by socioeconomic status or family transitions following separation.
This study estimates the extent that parental separation and re-partnering moderates genetic influences on children’s academic test scores by mother’s level of education. Genotyped data from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) linked with administrative registers allow not only the inclusion of household economic resources, but also genetic nurture effects (indirect genetic effects).
In contrast to previous results, no evidence is found that parental separation lowers genetic influences on children’s educational outcomes in Norway. However, findings demonstrate that re-partnering weakens the genetic effect on test scores among lower educated mothers. Results support the argument that stress related with re-partnering suppresses genetic influences on educational achievement, but highly educated mothers compensate for adverse conditions.
Zachary Van Winkle is Associate Professor of Sociology at Sciences Po (CRIS), and associate member of the University of Oxford and the Einstein Center for Population Diversity in Berlin. His research examines the interplay between family demography and social inequality from a comparative life course perspective. He is PI of the ERC Starting Grant project WIDOW on the social demography of widowhood, and has published in leading journals including the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, and the Journal of Marriage and Family.
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This event is part of the webinar series "FAMILIES IN FLUX: CONTEMPORARY DYNAMICS ACROSS DISCIPLINES" organised by the LIVES Working Group on Family Dynamics
Questions? Contact us at: osfamily@unil.ch
Organizers: Laura Bernardi, Fiona Friedli, Myriam Girardin, Julia Sauter, Magdalena Spasic
Upcoming sessions:
28 May 2026 — 1:00 PM
24 September 2026 — 1:00 PM
November 2026 — Joint session with DReMSS (date and time TBD)
Speakers and topics will be announced soon.