In the UKB we tested and confirmed that a much higher fraction of males (34%) than females (19%) described themselves as risk tolerant on the general risk tolerance measure (t-test P < 1 × 10−100; Supplementary Fig. 4), consistent with much prior research14,15. We used bivariate LD Score regression12 to calculate the genetic correlation between GWAS performed separately in the sample of females and in the sample of males in the UKB. Our estimate (r^g = 0.822, SE = 0.033) is high enough to justify our approach of pooling males and females in our other analyses to maximize statistical power10. Nonetheless, our estimate is significantly smaller than unity, suggesting that the autosomal genetic factors contributing to general risk tolerance, while largely similar across sexes, are not identical.
