As Wired reports, some researchers are looking into whether a person's genes can, in part, predict their income, but it adds that such research could be misused.
Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh's David Hill performed a genome-wide association study using data from the UK Biobank to identify 30 loci linked to participants' income levels, Wired adds. As the researchers report in a preprint at BioRxiv, they found that these loci could predict a small portion, 2.5 percent, of variance in income in an independent sample.
Wired says that sociogenomic studies like this could help researchers uncover the roots of economic inequality and help policymakers evaluate or even personalize social welfare programs. But, it adds, that such work could be misused to deny people benefits or increase their insurance premiums based on their polygenic scores.
Personalized social policy "might sound good at first, but if the goal is a more just society, policymakers are supposed to work without knowledge of things like socioeconomic status, sex, race, personality, talents, and especially genes," Wired argues.