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Updated: Sep 19, 2025

Using Cholesky Decomposition to Explore Individual Differences in Longitudinal Relations between Reading Skills
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Understanding indirect assortative mating and its intergenerational consequences for educational attainment.

Hans Fredrik Sunde1, Espen Moen Eilertsen2, Fartein Ask Torvik3,2

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We developed a framework to understand indirect assortative mating, finding social homogamy significantly influences partner similarity in education. This explains parent-offspring similarity better than direct assortment models.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Genetics
  • Quantitative Genetics
  • Sociology

Background:

  • Assortative mating, the non-random association of individuals with similar or dissimilar genotypes or phenotypes, influences population structure and family resemblance.
  • Understanding the mechanisms of assortative mating, including direct and indirect assortment, is crucial for disentangling genetic and environmental influences on traits.
  • Previous studies often relied on direct assortment models, potentially misattributing environmental influences on parent-offspring similarity.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a comprehensive framework for understanding indirect assortative mating.
  • To provide updated definitions for key terms related to assortative mating.
  • To investigate the relative contributions of genetic and social homogamy to partner similarity and parent-offspring resemblance in educational attainment.

Main Methods:

  • Development of novel family models incorporating partners of twins and siblings.
  • Free estimation of genetic and social homogamy.
  • Application of models to a large dataset (1,545,444 individuals, 212,070 families) from the Norwegian population and Twin Registry, focusing on educational attainment.

Main Results:

  • Partner similarity in education was better explained by indirect assortment, particularly social homogamy, than direct assortment.
  • The implied genotypic partner correlation (r=0.34) was consistent with prior research and higher than expected under direct assortment.
  • Approximately 38% of the parent-offspring correlation (r=0.34) for education was attributed to environmental transmission, a finding robust under the developed indirect assortment models.

Conclusions:

  • Indirect assortment, especially social homogamy, plays a significant role in shaping partner similarity in educational attainment.
  • The developed framework and models provide a more accurate estimation of environmental transmission in parent-offspring similarity by accounting for indirect assortment.
  • Direct assortment models provide a poorer fit to the data, highlighting the importance of considering indirect pathways in behavioral genetic research.