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The likelihood of relationship breakdown may be influenced by our genes

Genetics play a role in who is more likely to experience a relationship breakup and who has the greatest chance of staying together. But genes are not decisive, new research shows.

Our genes are part of the puzzle that determines who tends to leave relationships and who tends to stay.

(Image: NTB / Scanpix)

Gro Lien Garbo Gro Lien Garbo COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER

Presented by: Presented by: University of Oslo

Published 21 June 2026 - 00:01

“Our destiny does not lie in our genes, but if a relationship were a jigsaw puzzle, our genetics would make up some of the pieces that can influence the risk of a breakup,” says Ruth Eva Jørgensen.

She is a sociologist and has researched the topic.

There is no divorce gene

“The findings tell us something about patterns across large population groups, not about specific individuals,” she emphasises.

There is therefore no single divorce gene that you either have or don't have. All complex traits and life outcomes are influenced by thousands of small genetic variants at the same time. This applies to everything from personality and health to relationship outcomes.

“It's the sum of these that can give some of us a slightly higher or lower risk of leaving our partner. We're talking about statistical tendencies in large samples and not a prediction of what will happen in one specific relationship,” Jørgensen clarifies.

The importance of genetics depends on environmental factors

According to the researcher, the importance of genetics will also vary across different contexts.

“The same genetic variants can have different effects depending on what kind of environment, opportunities, and relationships you encounter throughout life,” she says.

Jørgensen used genetic data from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) to examine the association between genetics and relationship breakdown in Norway.

The study is based on so-called polygenic scores. These combine the effects of thousands of small genetic variants that influence a particular trait or outcome.

Such scores can be created for many different traits. Based on blood samples from the participating couples, each person in the sample has been given an index for a wide range of traits.

Genes work indirectly

“We carry our genes with us from birth. They don't change based on the choices we make later in life, but they can indirectly influence the choices we make. This can happen, for example, if genetics help shape personality traits, which in turn can act through the environment and the opportunities we encounter,” says Jørgensen.

The researchers also examined genetic differences between siblings. Siblings share a family background and much of the same upbringing.

This was done to ensure that the findings did not simply reflect the fact that people with certain genetic characteristics also grow up in particular families or environments.

“When genetic differences between siblings help explain differences in relationship outcomes, it strengthens the argument that genetics matter,” the sociologist says.

Portrait photo — Ruth Eva Jørgensen emphasises that the importance of genetics will vary between contexts and generations, and especially according to how great the constraints imposed by the surrounding environment are.

Several heritable traits linked to relationship breakdown

According to Jørgensen, our genes help make us a bit different from each other. They can influence how we handle stress, which choices we make early in life, and who we are attracted to.

“These are the connections we are trying to understand better,” she explains.

In the study, Jørgensen and her colleagues examined a broad set of polygenic indices to see which were associated with relationship breakdown.

They found that the higher a person’s polygenic score for taking higher education, subjective well-being, and having their first child at an older age, the lower their risk of relationship breakup.

People who have a higher score for risk behaviours such as smoking and early sexual debut, on the other hand, have a somewhat higher risk of relationship breakdown.

Anxious and vulnerable people separate less often

“We already knew that highly educated people separate less frequently than the rest of the Norwegian population. ready knew. But in this study, we see that some known patterns are also reflected when we look at polygenic indices. We can also examine traits that have not previously been studied,” she says.

One finding surprised Jørgensen. People with a higher polygenic score for neuroticism turned out to have a lower risk of relationship breakdown than others.

“One might expect neuroticism to increase the risk of relationship breakdown. On the other hand, if you are somewhat more anxious and vulnerable, you may need the security a relationship provides,” says Jørgensen.

Explains nine per cent of the variation among women

In one analysis, Jørgensen estimated how much of the variation in relationship breakdown could be attributed to common genetic variants.

She found that genetics as a whole accounted for nine per cent of the variation in women’s risk of relationship breakup. For men, the figure was three per cent.

Earlier twin studies have found much higher heritability estimates. Some studies have reported figures around 50 per cent.

Why is that?

“Twin studies capture more or less all genetic variation, whereas the molecular genetic methods I have used only track common genetic variants. It takes enormous samples to detect these tiny gene variants, and not all of them can be picked up. That's why the estimated effect is lower with this method,” Jørgensen says.

She notes that molecular genetic methods can provide information that twin studies cannot. Specifically, they can reveal which particular traits are involved through polygenic scores.

“We also gain information about a much larger part of the population, and not only about twin pairs,” Jørgensen explains.

She also points out that the importance of genetics will vary between contexts and generations, and especially with how strong the environmental constraints are. In periods or societies where relationship breakdown is forbidden, for example, there will be no variation for genetics to explain.

So far, this is the only study that uses these methods to study relationship breakdown.

“More similar studies in other contexts would provide greater insight into how the importance of genetics varies between societies and over time,” she says.

Until now, all the focus has been on the environment

Ruth Eva Jørgensen finds it particularly interesting to study the role of genes – and not only the environment, which is the most common focus in sociology.

“In sociological research, the focus has often been on the family environment and on what children do or don't learn from their parents in order to understand why relationship breakdown tends to run in families. My research shows that genetic family similarity also plays a role,” she says.

In another study, Jørgensen compared adoptive families with families that have biological children in order to separate genetic inheritance from environmental influences.

Here too, she wanted to understand how parents’ relationship breakdown affects the likelihood that their children will also experience breakups.

“Adopted children don't share genetics with their adoptive parents, so by making this comparison we can to a greater extent control for the fact that parents and children are partly genetically similar. We find that adoptive parents’ breakups have a much weaker association with adoptive children’s breakups, compared to families with biological children,” she says.

Genetics is not destiny

Despite the findings, Ruth Eva Jørgensen warns against using genetics as a kind of guide for choosing a partner. She stresses that genes are only one part of the picture and should not be viewed as destiny.

“Genes contribute to making us different, but they act together with our life history, our environment, our partner, and everything else that happens in life,” she says.

The history of genetic research makes her particularly aware of this.

“This field has a rather ugly history involving eugenics, racism, and discrimination. That's why it's especially important to avoid a deterministic interpretation of what we find, and instead try to understand how genetics and environment work together,” says Ruth Eva Jørgensen.

Reference:

Jørgensen, R.E. Partnership Dissolution, Intergenerational Consequences, and Partner Influence: A Sociogenomic Perspective on Family Dynamics (PDF), Doctoral thesis at the University of Oslo, 2026.