Summary: New research finds little evidence that higher testosterone has a meaningful impact on socioeconomic status, health, or risk-taking in men or women.
Source: University of Bristol
As major sporting events like the Olympics prompt attention to hormone-related performance, testosterone is often credited with success both on and off the field. However, a new large-scale study indicates that testosterone may play far less of a role in shaping life outcomes than popular narratives suggest.
Previous research has reported associations between testosterone and measures of socioeconomic position—such as income, education, and job status—especially in men. Researchers at the University of Bristol’s Population Health Sciences (PHS) and the MRC Integrated Epidemiology Unit (IEU) set out to test whether those associations reflect a causal effect of testosterone on life outcomes, or whether other factors—like health or socioeconomic circumstances—drive both testosterone levels and those outcomes.
To separate direct effects of testosterone from confounding influences, the team used Mendelian randomization, a genetic approach that leverages inherited variants linked to circulating testosterone. Because genetic variants are fixed at conception and generally unaffected by later life events, this method helps to clarify whether testosterone itself influences outcomes. The analysis used data from 306,248 UK adults in the UK Biobank and examined a broad set of outcomes: household income, employment and job skill level, neighbourhood-level deprivation, educational qualifications, self-rated health, body mass index (BMI), and risk-taking behaviour.
In conventional observational analyses, the researchers reproduced earlier patterns: men with higher measured testosterone tended to have higher household income, live in less deprived areas, and be more likely to hold university degrees and skilled occupations. For women, higher measured testosterone correlated with lower household income, greater neighbourhood deprivation, and a lower likelihood of having a university degree. Observationally, higher testosterone was linked to better self-rated health among men but to poorer health among women, and higher testosterone in men was associated with greater reported risk-taking.
When the investigators examined the inherited genetic variants associated with higher testosterone, however, they found little evidence that those variants were meaningfully related to socioeconomic outcomes, health measures, or risk-taking for either men or women. In other words, while measured testosterone levels correlate with many life outcomes, the genetic evidence does not support a strong causal role for testosterone in determining those outcomes.
Dr Amanda Hughes, Senior Research Associate in Epidemiology at Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences, commented that widely held beliefs about testosterone shaping life trajectories may be overstated. She noted that prior studies linking testosterone to occupational success or financial gains could reflect reverse causation or shared influences, such as overall health or social circumstances, rather than a direct hormonal effect. For example, feeling successful can itself alter testosterone, as seen in sports where winners often show short-term testosterone increases compared with losers.
The study does not contradict experimental evidence that testosterone can influence short-term behaviours—such as assertiveness or willingness to take risks—under some conditions. Instead, it suggests that these immediate behavioural effects do not necessarily translate into long-term changes in socioeconomic position or persistent differences in health across the population. Associations seen in observational data may therefore be driven by confounding factors rather than testosterone causing those outcomes.
The researchers note that results for women were less precise than for men, reflecting smaller effect estimates and greater uncertainty; larger studies or meta-analyses may clarify testosterone’s role in women in the future. The study emphasizes the importance of robust causal methods when interpreting links between biological markers and social or economic outcomes.
This work was funded by the Health Foundation as part of a project on the social and economic consequences of health, which uses causal inference methods and longitudinal, intergenerational data to assess the value of health for social and economic outcomes. The full findings are scheduled to appear in Science Advances.
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Source: University of Bristol
Contact: Joanne Fryer – University of Bristol
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Original Research: The findings will appear in Science Advances