| 1. |
- Smith, Jennifer A, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature (London). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 533:7604, s. 539-542
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with the number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioural phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because educational attainment is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric diseases.
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| 2. |
- Cronert, Axel, 1986-
(författare)
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All Interventionists Now? : On the Political Economy of Active Labor Market Policy as Micro-Interventionist Multi-Tools
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As recent decades have seen a growing interest in reforming advanced welfare states to promote employment, active labor market policy (ALMP) has emerged as a major topic of inquiry among comparative political economists. Whereas the literature to date disagrees on, and mostly downplays, the role of partisan politics in the development of ALMP, this dissertation shows that political actors systematically use ALMP programs in different ways to achieve distinct political aims. Drawing mostly on a rich, new panel data set on approximately 1,000 programs across Europe, the dissertation draws attention to several politically salient dimensions of ALMP that need to be taken seriously to understand how partisan politics matter in advanced industrial democracies.Essay I reconciles the conflicting understandings of partisanship and ALMP in the ‘power resources’ and ‘insider/outsider’ schools by highlighting that ALMP programs may serve two overarching purposes. The essay shows that left-leaning governments are particularly inclined to expand programs designed primarily to reduce unemployment, whereas governments of all suits are equally supportive of programs that also, or instead, serve to increase labor supply.Essay II focuses on employment subsidies, documenting how these may be designed to tackle different labor market challenges among different target groups. Emphasizing institutional path dependency, the essay then shows that cross-national variation in employment subsidy design broadly reflects the varying institutional regimes in different parts of Europe.Essay III reconsiders the conventional view on the importance of employer involvement and corporatist institutions for ALMP by separating programs produced unilaterally by the state from programs, such as employment subsidies, produced jointly by the state and employers to the benefit of both. The essay finds that corporatist institutions primarily matter for ALMP by paving the way for governments—especially with business-friendly center-right parties—that favor joint over unilateral production.The introductory essay argues that ALMP forms part of a larger family of economic policies that are sufficiently versatile to be sustained and used by actors across the political spectrum. Reviewing long-term trends in economic policy in OECD countries, it shows that these policies, which are here labelled micro-interventionist multi-tools, have expanded considerably since the early 1980s.
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| 3. |
- Dancygier, Rafaela M., et al.
(författare)
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Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: American Political Science Review. - 0003-0554 .- 1537-5943. ; 109:4, s. 703-724
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Widespread and persistent political underrepresentation of immigrant-origin minorities poses deep challenges to democratic practice and norms. What accounts for this underrepresentation? Two types of competing explanations are prevalent in the literature: accounts that base minority underrepresentation on individual-level resources and accounts that emphasize political opportunity structures. However, due to the lack of data suitable for testing these explanations, existing research has not been able to adjudicate between these theories. Using registry-based microdata covering the entire Swedish adult population between 1991 and 2010 our study is the first to empirically evaluate these alternative explanations. We examine election outcomes to municipal councils over the course of six elections and find that variation in individual-level resources cannot explain immigrants' underrepresentation. Further, when comparing immigrants and natives who face comparable political opportunity structures a large representation gap remains. Instead, we argue that discrimination by party gatekeepers plays a more significant role in perpetuating the underrepresentation of immigrants than do individual resources or structural variables.
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| 4. |
- Dancygier, Rafaela, et al.
(författare)
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Representationsgapet
- 2017
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Ingår i: Valdeltagande och representation. - : Delmi. - 9789188021236
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Lindgren, Karl-Oskar, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Access to education and political candidacy : Lessons from school openings in Sweden
- 2019
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Ingår i: Economics of Education Review. - : Elsevier. - 0272-7757 .- 1873-7382. ; 69, s. 138-148
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How does availability of education affect who becomes a political representative? Theorists have pointed out that access to education is a key to a well-functioning democracy, but few empirical studies have examined how changes in the access to education influence the chances of becoming a politician. In this paper, we analyze the effects of a large series of school openings in Sweden during the early 20th century, which provided adolescents with better access to secondary education. We use administrative data pertaining to the entire Swedish population born between 1916 and 1945. According to our empirical results, the opening of a new lower secondary school in a municipality increased the baseline probability of running for political office by 10–20%, and the probability of holding office by 20–30%.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Lindgren, Karl-Oskar, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Can Political Inequalities Be Educated Away? Evidence from a Large-scale Reform
- 2017
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Ingår i: American Journal of Political Science. - : Wiley. - 0092-5853 .- 1540-5907. ; 61:1, s. 222-236
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Over the years, many suggestions have been made on how to reduce the importance of family background in political recruitment. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of one such proposal: the expansion of mass education. We utilize a difference-in-difference strategy to analyze how a large school reform launched in Sweden in the 1950s, which lengthened schooling and postponed tracking, affected the likelihood of individuals with different family backgrounds to run for public office. The data come from public registers and pertain to the entire Swedish population born between 1943 and 1955. The empirical analysis provides strong support for the view that improved educational opportunities for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds can be an effective means to reduce the social bias of elected assemblies.
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| 9. |
- Lindgren, Karl-Oskar, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Enhancing Electoral Equality: Can Education Compensate for Family Background Differences in Voting Participation?
- 2019
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Ingår i: American Political Science Review. - 0003-0554 .- 1537-5943. ; 113:1, s. 108-122
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2018 American Political Science Association. It is well documented that voter turnout is lower among persons who grow up in families from a low socioeconomic status compared with persons from high-status families. This paper examines whether reforms in education can help reduce this gap. We establish causality by exploiting a pilot scheme preceding a large reform of Swedish upper secondary education in the early 1990s, which gave rise to exogenous variation in educational attainment between individuals living in different municipalities or born in different years. Similar to recent studies employing credible identification strategies, we fail to find a statistically significant average effect of education on political participation. We move past previous studies, however, and show that the reform nevertheless contributed to narrowing the voting gap between individuals of different social backgrounds by raising turnout among those from low socioeconomic status households. The results thus square well with other recent studies arguing that education is particularly important for uplifting politically marginalized groups.
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| 10. |
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