TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Menta, Giorgia
AU  - Biroli, Pietro
AU  - Mehta, Divya
AU  - D'Ambrosio, Conchita
AU  - Cobb-Clark, Deborah A.
        TI  - Aggregating Epigenetic Clocks to Study Human Capital Formation
        PY  - 2025/Sep/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18114
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18114
        AB  - Epigenetics is the study of how people’s behavior and environments influence the way their genes are expressed, even though their DNA sequence is itself unchanged. By aggregating age-related epigenetic markers, epigenetic ‘clocks’ have become the leading tool for studying biological aging. We make an important contribution by developing a novel, integrated measure of epigenetic aging – the Multi EpiGenetic Age (MEGA) clock – which combines several existing epigenetic clocks to reduce measurement error and improve estimation efficiency. We use the MEGA clock in three empirical contexts to show that: i) accelerated epigenetic aging in adolescence is associated with worse educational, mental-health, and labor market outcomes in early adulthood; ii) exposure to child maltreatment before adolescence is associated with half a year higher epigenetic aging; and iii) that entering school one year later accelerates epigenetic aging by age seven, particularly among disadvantaged children. The MEGA clock is robust to alternative methods for constructing it, providing a flexible and interpretable approach for incorporating epigenetic data into a wide variety of settings.
        KW  - child abuse
KW  - DNA methylation
KW  - epigenetic clocks
KW  - human capital
KW  - ALSPAC data
        ER  -