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.
A peer-reviewed study out of the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy used a regression discontinuity design to isolate the causal effect of a parent's field of study on their children's career choices. The study tracked Swedish university applicants from 1977 to 1992 and followed their children's outcomes through 2023. The design is rigorous. It exploits admission score cutoffs to separate the effect of actually studying a field from the shared family background that might push both generations toward it. The results confirm what you would expect: children of doctors become doctors. Children of architects become architects. Children of lawyers become lawyers. The professions that carry prestige, clear career ladders, and durable earning power pass themselves forward (Table 1). Engineering overall clears the bar as well, showing a statistically significant causal inheritance effect of +98% (Altmejd, 2023).
Then there is mechanical engineering.
When the study isolates bachelor's-level engineering subfields, the pattern breaks. Fewer than half a percent of all students choose mechanical engineering. The descriptive data shows children of mechanical engineers are still drawn to the field at 220 percent of that baseline rate, meaning shared family background (math aptitude, socioeconomic class, proximity to engineering culture) pushes them toward it. But once you isolate the causal channel, the part that comes specifically from growing up watching a parent do the work, the effect reverses. Children of mechanical engineers become three times less likely to follow the same path as their parents (Table 2). Civil engineering shows a smaller negative effect. Electrical engineering is roughly flat. Mechanical engineering is the outlier. The background says go. The dinner table says don't (Altmejd, 2023, Appendix Table C.2).
The same study explains why. The paper establishes that inheritance runs through labor market outcomes. Parents who are predicted to earn well in their field pass it on. Parents who are predicted to earn below the 56th percentile cause the opposite effect: their children become less likely to follow. In other words, the study proves that weak career outcomes break the chain of inheritance. You do not need to speculate about why mechanical engineering breaks the pattern. You have seventy posts of evidence on this blog documenting exactly the labor market conditions that the study identifies as the mechanism. The underemployment is the highest among the core engineering disciplines (see Reason #63). The pay lags every peer except civil (see Reason #27). The satisfaction is the lowest (see Reason #38). The work drifts into coordination and paperwork (see Reason #9). The study did not set out to indict mechanical engineering. It simply measured what happens when parents have weak labor market prospects in their field. Mechanical engineering fit the pattern.
Children of mechanical engineers do not need career fairs or glossy brochures to understand this. They grow up watching it. They see the relocations that were not optional (see Reason #20 and Reason #11). The late nights that were not heroic. The layoffs that were not personal, just "business" (see Reason #44 and Reason #45). They notice how much of the work disappears into paperwork and how little of it turns into autonomy, flexibility, or durable upside (see Reason #33).
Engineering overall shows inheritance. Mechanical engineering shows rejection. The field has no shortage of outsiders lining up (see Reason #1 and Reason #34). What it lacks is succession. The people who know it best do not pass it on.
Data Tables
Table 1. Career Inheritance by Profession
| Profession | % of All Students | How Often Children Follow | Effect of Parent's Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | 0.55% | 729% of baseline | +245% |
| Medicine | 4.39% | 354% of baseline | +97% *** |
| Law | 1.08% | 343% of baseline | +105% |
| Engineering (all disciplines) | 3.30% | 207% of baseline | +98% *** |
| Teaching | 5.99% | 140% of baseline | +31% |
Source: Altmejd (2023), IFAU Working Paper 2023:11, Table B.2. "% of All Students" = baseline share of children who earn a degree in this field. "How Often Children Follow" = how much more likely children of parents in this field are to also earn a degree in it (descriptive). "Effect of Parent's Experience" = the causal effect of the parent's own enrollment, isolated from shared family background via regression discontinuity. *** p ≤ 0.001.
Table 2. Career Inheritance Within Engineering (Bachelor's Subfields)
| Subfield | % of All Students | How Often Children Follow | Effect of Parent's Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering (all disciplines) | 3.30% | 207% of baseline | +98% *** |
| BSc. Chemical Engineering | 0.05% | 198% of baseline | +1,358%† |
| BSc. Civil Engineering | 0.51% | 259% of baseline | −40% |
| BSc. Electrical Engineering | 0.49% | 144% of baseline | −10% |
| BSc. Mechanical Engineering | 0.38% | 220% of baseline | −290% |
Source: Altmejd (2023), IFAU Working Paper 2023:11, Appendix Table C.2 (subfields) and Table B.2 (engineering overall). "BSc. Machine Engineering" in the Swedish system corresponds to mechanical engineering. †BSc. Chemical Engineering baseline is extremely small (0.05%), making the relative causal effect unstable; included for completeness.
References:
Altmejd, A. (2023). Inheritance of fields of study (IFAU Working Paper 2023:11). Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy. https://hdl.handle.net/10419/296956
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