Job Attainment Characteristics: Genetic Basis Shared with Other SES Indices

Job attainment is an important component of socioeconomic status (SES). There is currently a paucity of genomic research on an individuals’ job attainment, as well as how it is related to other SES variables and overall well-being. By incorporating O*NET occupational information into the UK Biobank database, we performed GWAS analyses of six major job attainment characteristics – complexity, autonomy, innovation, information demands, emotional demands, and physical demands – on 219,483 individuals of European ancestry. The job attainment had moderate to high pairwise genetic correlations, manifested by three latent factors: cognitive, emotional, and physical functions. The latent job function underlying job attainment traits represented a critical genetic path from educational attainment to income (P < 0.001). The higher job attainment was genetically correlated with better health outcomes (i.e., subject well-being, overall health rating, number of non-cancer illnesses etc. (|rg|: 0.14 to 0.51), similar to other SES indices; however, the genetic correlations exhibited opposite directions for physical demands (|rg|: 0.14 to 0.51) and were largely negligible for emotional demands. By adopting a fine-grained approach to capture specific job attainment phenotypes, our study represents an important step forward in understanding the shared genetic architecture among job attainment characteristics, other SES indices, and potential role in health outcomes.