Colorism

Our study will investigate the impact of skin color-based discrimination (colorism) on socioeconomic and health outcomes. We will do so by measuring how genetic variants that increase melanin production are associated with surveyed outcomes in the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), including employment, income, education, and medical history. The results will add quantitative evidence to the large body of qualitative and critical literature on colorism and enhance our understanding of how colorism contributes to structural inequality.

To measure the causal impact of colorism on life outcomes, we will use genetic variant data from the Genotype Data Version 3 (2006-2012 Samples) available via NAGADS and outcomes from HRS survey questions, such as income and years of education. We will assemble a list of SNPs from prior studies that have been shown to cause darker skin, and study the impacts of these SNPs on individuals in the HRS. The specific SNPS of interest include rs16891982, rs1426654, and rs1800404, which according to correspondence with Amanda Kuzma are available in the Genotype Data (at least via HRC imputation). To estimate effects, we will fit regression models that relate life outcomes to the presence of SNPs while controlling for any confounding variables, including genetic principal components. If colorism leads to worse life outcomes, we would expect to see a negative slope between the effect size of the SNP and the predicted outcomes. Our analysis can be considered a version of Mendelian randomization (MR). We will perform the work in Python and R.

Our study will bring new statistical evidence to a large body of work demonstrating that colorism is a widespread form of discrimination in America. Using Mendelian randomization with variants that modulate genetically predisposed skin color, we can directly isolate the causal effect of colorism on social inequalities. Our findings have the potential to support the lived experiences of people who experience skin color-based discrimination and improve public knowledge that colorism is an important contributor to inequality in our society, and one that we can better address through policy.

Our study will investigate the impact of skin color-based discrimination (colorism) on socioeconomic and health outcomes. We will do so by measuring how genetic variants that increase melanin production are associated with surveyed outcomes in the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS), including employment, income, education, and medical history. The results will add quantitative evidence to the large body of qualitative and critical literature on colorism and enhance our understanding of how colorism contributes to structural inequality. Our findings have the potential to support the lived experiences of people who experience skin color-based discrimination and improve public knowledge that colorism is an important contributor to inequality in our society, and one that we can better address through policy.