IQ predicted by parents white collar or blue collar job

[NorhamGardens]

I had to have one of mine assessed by an educational psychologist.

In passing we discussed DC's school, he used to work directly for the school.

He said with absolute conviction that a blue collar parent/s were likely to have a child with a much lower IQ and a white collar parent/s a child with a much higher IQ.

It made me wonder how many other professionals in similar fields have similar ideas?

I was very surprised. Surely this is classist and hasn't the 'thinking' behind IQ evolved anyway?

It's true. Mensa did a study. It doesn't mean that people from blue collar backgrounds cannot have high Iqs, just that they are less likely to, and IQ is highly heritable.

IQ is highly heritable, this is true.

The correlation between IQ and type of job is not 100%, but it does exist.

So I wouldn't say 'much higher IQ' but I think if you took a group of children and separated them out by whether their parents were accountants or binmen, the children of the accountants would on average have higher IQs. This doesn't mean that an individual child-of-binman might not have a higher IQ than an individial child-of-accountant, but on average it would be the case.

And with (in theory) equal educational opportunities (social mobility etc) this correlation is likely to increase. In the past the child of a binman with a very high IQ would not have had the opportunity to go to university and become and accountant, so they would be a binman like their parents, and pass on their high-IQ genes to chldren who would also be children of binmen. Or a child of accountants who had a low IQ might get by on contacts and become an account and pass on their low-IQ genes to children who would also be children of accountants.

Feel free to tell me that your DH is a binman and very clever, but doing the binman job requires less cleverness than doing an accountant job (or it should do if you are any good at being an accountant).

Going to disagree totally with this. The education available and opportunities differ wildly according to (basically) how much money you have. A lot of people who have been privately schooled will have fabbo jobs, but are actually nothing special in the brains department. Meanwhile a lot of very bright kids who are born into difficult circs will have their life chances set out before they can walk.

I also thought that social mobility in the UK wasn't happening?

This also fails to take into account that many people do not procreate with others of the same IQ...

Social mobility is happening, although more in the upwards direction than downwards - there are plenty of opportunities for children of manual workers to go to university (I am one and know plenty more) but not so much opportunity for less-clever children of well-off parents to fall very far down the 'ladder'.

ISNT - but we're talking correlations. We're saying on average blue collar workers childrens have lower IQs than white collar workers.

You are right that how much money you have plays a big factor - but for the same reason there will be a corelation between income and IQ.

(Jobs which require higher IQs like Doctors and Lawyers by and large pay more than jobs that don't require high IQs like cleaners.)

There is no question that anyone can have any income. But the odds of you having an IQ of 140 and a father who is a binman is far lower than the odds of you having an IQ of 140 and a father who is a doctor.

And if you have an IQ of 140 then it is more likely that you will become a doctor than a binman, therefore your children who inherit your IQ will have a parent who is a doctor nto a binman.

I actually think that the IQs of the two people in a partnership will correlate very highly, either through the circles they move in or simply because no-one really wants to go out with someone who is a lot cleverer or a lot less clever than them.

No, but many people do procreate with partners in the same iq bracket. How many of us meet our partners at university or whilst doing similar jobs?
The whole IQ issue is complex - if you took it at face value you'd have to believe that our grandparents generation were, on average, significantly learning disabled by modern standard - but I'm sure that if you took a large sample of doctors' children and bus drivers' children you'd see a significant difference in average IQ results - though you could argue about what that means. (assume for the sake of argument that you've found a sample of two-doctor and two bus-driver households, and that the bus drivers' advantage on the 3d visualisation element is outweighed on other elements of the test.)

I simply do not believe it to be likely to be true, I really don't.

People do not only breed with others of the same intelligence
There is not much social mobility - most people's life outcome potential is pretty much mapped at birth and not due to differences in intelligence
Many people in jobs like doctor, lawyer, aren't that bright, they have just had a very good education and been pushed and pushed
Many other successful people aren't that "IQ bright" but have other different qualities like fantastic interpersonal/networking skills, resiliance, ambition, cunning, creativity etc etc

I just do not see it.

Plus we don't have that much manual work in this country any more. And jobs aren't for life. So someone might do something "manual" like waiting tables when young, and end up doing something in an office later.

I think all of this is very simplistic and likely to be wrong.

Sure two very bright people might well produce very bright offspring - but the two bright people might be in low paid occupations. Very bright people also do not always have the personality to be successful.

IME the most financially successful people are the ones who are fairly bright but have a range of other attributes as well.

Sorry I just think this idea is rubbish!

I also know plenty of successful men who have married women who are not as clever as them - there is a certain personality that likes it this way. Yes many people do pair up with "similar" but not all.

I would also dispute that a person with an IQ of 140 is more likely to end up a doctor than a binman. I just don't think it's true. See points about schooling and personality upthread. Person with IQ of 140 can end up binman, doctor, entrepreneur, destitute alcoholic. Everyone knows someone who is really clever and struggles with life, probably. And ditto people who are successful and a bit dim. Happens all the time.

"most people's life outcome potential is pretty much mapped at birth"

That's a very depressing viewpoint and IMO completely untrue.

You don't think that in our society the potential outcomes for a child born to a single parent on the poverty line with drug issues, are different to those of a child born to a family with wealth and good connections who will send the child to top private schools?

Interesting.

Assuming the children have the same IQs, obv.

Rather extreme examples there,, you said most people.

Far more depressing to say that people's outcomes are ordained at birth, based on their IQ, which is in turn based on the occupations of their parents.

And yes they are extremes to illustrate an example. Most people's potential outcomes are mapped at birth. Not because of IQ but because of opportunity and cash. At least those can change, to condemn children of poor people as thick and thus they deserve their position in life seems the thin end of the wedge to me.

If people don't get good jobs because of the way society is structured, that can be helped.

If people who are doing the low paid work do so because they are congenitally stupid, and thuse will their children be, as they will of course breed with someone equally stupid... That then is a natural order of things and no point trying to change it.

Balls to that. It's rubbish.

It would be depressing to think it was all preordained, but we're only talking about averages. Nothing is impossible, for all the reasons ISNT mentions, but some outcomes are a little more likely than others.

news to me that your IQ is largely dependent onthe IQ of your parents. Hadn't heard that before.

Not sure what I think about all this really

ISNT, I agree with most of what you say.

From what I read IQ and what is genetically inherited is increasingly rather a grey area.

What I was told just felt too simplistic and potentially dangerous. It came from a professional who is held in very high regard by our school and more widely too.

It's the job type = IQ correlation that I disagree with. I think the idea that there is a strong correlation there is deeply flawed. I would be interested in research that showed this - but IQ tests themselves have a bias i think?

I fear it is utter shite that is widely believed, possibly only privately by some.

The problem is that people don't understand the difference between something being true on average and something being true for an individual.

ISNT - no-one's life outcomes are pre-ordained. You said they were. I said they were not. And IQ is not based upon the occupation of your parents, it merely correlates. Someone with a higher IQ is more likely to go on to become a doctor (or I bloody hope they are, as no-one wants stupid doctors).

Did none of you hear what Michael Gove had to say on the matter? "Rich thick kids do better." The playing field is far from level; improved schooling for poor, able children won't fix the problem, but can iron out a couple of the bumps for some. Some shockingly elitist delusions in this thread!

Trillian, your statement "no-one's life outcomes are pre-ordained" is a comforting thought but absolute bollocks.