Is academia a family business?
John Dorsch concludes that:
• Over 50% of tenure-track faculty have at least one parent with a graduate degree (master's or PhD).
• About 22% have a parent with a PhD.
• Faculty are up to 25× more likely than the general population to have a PhD-holding parent,
• At elite institutions, that figure rises to roughly 50 times higher.
While this is based on US survey data my guess is the rough magnitudes would hold for the UK too
My family on both sides here in America is full of doctors, nurses, pastors, and teachers. I think those trends began with quality public education after the Civil War. Especially post high school as the 20th Century began. I also think WWII presented new opportunities for women to begin professional careers beyond housewife and motherhood.
yes, I think the issue is complex - on one level its a Q. of middle class children taking up middle class careers, but especially for PhD holders it *does* look more like a self-replicating caste
But in addition to middle-class children taking up middle-class careers, my guess is that the profession-specific trend found here would be found everywhere: lawyers have more lawyers as parents, doctors more doctors, etc, etc... There are many famous cases - Richard Branson started Virgin in the vinyl records business, when his father was an EMI executive, Elon Musk's father was a fascist...
