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Age at Menarche and Time Spent in Education: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Gill, D; Del Greco M, F; Rawson, TM; Sivakumaran, P; Brown, A; Sheehan, NA; Minelli, C (2017) Age at Menarche and Time Spent in Education: A Mendelian Randomization Study. Behav Genet, 47 (5). pp. 480-485. ISSN 1573-3297 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-017-9862-2
SGUL Authors: Gill, Dipender Preet Singh

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Abstract

Menarche signifies the primary event in female puberty and is associated with changes in self-identity. It is not clear whether earlier puberty causes girls to spend less time in education. Observational studies on this topic are likely to be affected by confounding environmental factors. The Mendelian randomization (MR) approach addresses these issues by using genetic variants (such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs) as proxies for the risk factor of interest. We use this technique to explore whether there is a causal effect of age at menarche on time spent in education. Instruments and SNP-age at menarche estimates are identified from a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) meta-analysis of 182,416 women of European descent. The effects of instruments on time spent in education are estimated using a GWAS meta-analysis of 118,443 women performed by the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC). In our main analysis, we demonstrate a small but statistically significant causal effect of age at menarche on time spent in education: a 1 year increase in age at menarche is associated with 0.14 years (53 days) increase in time spent in education (95% CI 0.10-0.21 years, p = 3.5 × 10-8). The causal effect is confirmed in sensitivity analyses. In identifying this positive causal effect of age at menarche on time spent in education, we offer further insight into the social effects of puberty in girls.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Keywords: Education, Educational attainment, Menarche, Mendelian randomization, Puberty, Age Factors, Education, Educational Status, European Continental Ancestry Group, Female, Gene-Environment Interaction, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Humans, Menarche, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Puberty, Random Allocation, Risk Factors, Sexual Maturation, Humans, Risk Factors, Random Allocation, Age Factors, Puberty, Menarche, Sexual Maturation, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Education, European Continental Ancestry Group, Educational Status, Female, Genetic Variation, Genome-Wide Association Study, Gene-Environment Interaction, 1701 Psychology, 1109 Neurosciences, Genetics & Heredity
SGUL Research Institute / Research Centre: Academic Structure > Infection and Immunity Research Institute (INII)
Journal or Publication Title: Behav Genet
ISSN: 1573-3297
Language: eng
Dates:
DateEvent
September 2017Published
9 August 2017Published Online
13 July 2017Accepted
Publisher License: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0
PubMed ID: 28785901
Go to PubMed abstract
URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/112800
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10519-017-9862-2

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