Reason #53: Your Kids Don’t Want This Career—and Neither Should You

Some careers run in families. Medicine does. Law does. Architecture does. These are licensed, gated professions with exams, boards, and formal choke points. Parents pass down not just expectations, but practical knowledge about how to get through the gate. Dynasties form because the structure rewards them.

Engineering does this too.

At a broad level, engineering starts from a baseline where about 3% of students choose it at all. Relative to that baseline, kids of engineers are roughly 100% more likely to also end up in engineering. That’s real intergenerational following. Weak compared to medicine or law, but real nonetheless (Altmejd, 2023).

Now look at the control group.

Architecture starts from a tiny baseline of about 0.55%, yet shows a +250% parent–child effect. Teaching starts from a much larger baseline, around 6%, and still shows a +30% family-following effect. Law starts from roughly 1% and shows +100%. Medicine starts near 4–5% and also shows close to +100%. These are professions that clearly carry themselves forward. The study detects dynasties exactly where you’d expect them.

Engineering in general, clears the bar as well.

But then there’s Mechanical Engineering.

ME starts from a baseline where fewer than half a percent of students chooses it at all. Relative to that already-small baseline, kids of Mechanical Engineers are nearly 300% less likely to follow the same path. Civil engineering is closer to 40% less likely. Electrical engineering is about 10% less likely. Architecture goes the opposite direction entirely, showing strong positive inheritance (Altmejd, 2023, Appendix Table C.2).

That puts mechanical engineering in a position you’ve already seen before.
Mechanical engineers are tied to physical plants and specific facilities, which quietly dictates where they can live and work (see Reason #20 and Reason #11). When companies restructure, merge, or offshore, mechanical roles are often the first to be “rationalized,” turning years of experience into dead weight overnight (see Reason #44 and Reason #45).

And even when the job survives, the work itself becomes increasingly invisible. The product isn’t the mechanism. It’s the documentation, the reports, the reviews, the approvals, and the meetings that exist so someone else can say “we’re on track” (see Reason #33 and Reason #9).

Children of mechanical engineers don’t need career fairs or glossy brochures to understand this. They grow up watching it. They see the relocations that weren’t optional. The late nights that weren’t heroic. The layoffs that weren’t personal, just “business.” They notice how much of the work disappears into paperwork and how little of it turns into autonomy, flexibility, or durable upside.

That’s why the inheritance breaks.

Plain English:
While Engineering overall shows inheritance. Mechanical Engineering shows rejection.
Mechanical engineering has no shortage of outsiders lining up (see Reason #1 and Reason #34). What it lacks is succession. Here, the people who know it best don’t pass it on.
If you’re unsure about mechanical engineering, that doubt isn’t a personal failing. It’s pattern recognition. You’re reacting to the same realities that make insiders quietly steer their own kids (or themselves) elsewhere.

Mechanical Engineering doesn’t struggle to attract outsiders, but it fails terribly to carry itself forward.

Reference:

Altmejd, A. (2023). Inheritance of fields of study (Working Paper). Stockholm School of Economics. https://adamaltmejd.se/assets/papers/Altmejd_Inheritance.pdf