Should children follow their parents' research paths? Intergenerational research continuity and divergence in academic families

2026-06-28

AI Summary

This study investigates the intergenerational transmission of research fields within academic families and its impact on scholarly achievement. By integrating familial relationships from Wikidata with bibliometric data from OpenAlex, the authors analyze 3,229 parent–child academic pairs and their nearly 490,000 publications to quantify associations among field similarity, co-citation behaviors, and academic performance. The work reveals, for the first time at scale, that the median research field similarity between parent and child scholars is 0.546; a 0.1 increase in similarity corresponds to a 38–39% rise in the likelihood of collaboration and mutual citation. While parental academic success strongly and positively predicts offspring achievement, children who diverge from their parents’ research domains achieve higher normalized citation impact than those who remain within them.

Abstract

How academic advantages are transmitted within families is usually studied as occupational inheritance, but it is not clear whether scholarly research orientations persist across generations and if it is an advantage when it does. To address this, we link Wikidata kinship records with OpenAlex bibliometric profiles to study 3,229 documented parent-child scholar pairs and 488,659 publications. Field-level research similarity was evident but not universal: whilst the median similarity was 0.546, 25.3% of parent-child pairs had no Field overlap (i.e., similarity 0). These pairs were substantially more similar than publication-period-matched comparison pairs (median 0.098). Direct academic interaction was uncommon: 10.4% of parent-child pairs had co-authored, 9.8% of children had cited their parents, and 6.9% of parents had cited their children. Nevertheless, each 0.1 increase in Field similarity was associated with 38-39% higher adjusted odds of co-authorship and cross-citation. There was also intergenerational continuity in academic achievement and recognition. Parents' publication volume and field-normalized citation impact were positively associated with those of their children. Children of national academy members had approximately twice the odds of becoming national academy members themselves (Odds Ratio = 2.04), while children of prizewinning parents had 46% higher odds of winning prizes (Odds Ratio = 1.46). However, children of national academy members showed lower research similarity to their parents. Greater research differentiation was associated with higher field-normalized citation impact among children, but not with publication output or higher odds of academic recognition. Academic families therefore appear to transmit resources and advantages with the sole exception that diverging from parental fields seems to confer a citation advantage.

Problem

• intergenerational research continuity
• academic inheritance
• research similarity
• academic advantage
• scholarly families

Innovation

• intergenerational research continuity
• field similarity
• bibliometric analysis
• academic inheritance
• research divergence