A team of researchers from the U.K., Australia and the U.S. has found evidence that suggests genetic influence on social outcomes is greater in meritocratic than in communistic societies. In their paper published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, the group describes their study of people living in Estonia before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the impact it had on social outcomes.

Everyone knows that genetics plays a role in what becomes of people in various societies—hard-driving, smart people, for example, tend to do well in their careers, whereas those born with less intelligence and drive might not fare so well. But what happens when inheritable traits are compared between different types of societies, such as one based on merit versus one based on communism? The researchers with this new effort theorized that genetics would play a more prominent role in meritocratic societies than in communist ones. This is because people living in a society based on merit, who inherit skills that lead to success, likely would have more trouble doing so in a society that places more value on group success. To find out if this might be the case, the researchers looked at educational attainment and occupational status of people living in Estonia raised before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Prior to the breakup, the people in that country lived under the heavy hand of Soviet communism—after the breakup, the country gained independence and modeled itself on many countries in the West, and became capitalist.

The researchers genotyped 12,500 people living in Estonia and looked at their educational and career achievements—they then compared the group raised under communism with those raised under capitalism. They report that they found a significant difference. They found, for example, that approximately 2 percent of the variance seen in educational success was due to differences in genetic factors during the Soviet era. That number jumped to approximately 6 percent after independence. The researchers contend that such numbers suggest very strongly that their theory was correct—genetics does play a more prominent role in a society where individual success is based on a given person's unique attributes than in societies where other factors are at play.

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