Using sibling similarities to uncover the hidden influence of family background in doctoral education and academic careers

Aug 27, 2026

Family background has been shown to be a strong determinant of educational attainment, yet relatively little is known about how it shapes PhD attainment and the selection into academic careers. Using sibling correlations estimated from Finnish full population register data, this study quantifies the importance of family background for becoming a PhD and subsequently entering academia. Results show family background accounts for over one third of variation in PhD attainment and academic entry, far larger than conventional parental education comparisons. The study also finds sibling similarities align mainly with prior educational achievement rather than other background traits.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Background and motivation

Research gaps

Research questions and approach

Data and sibling-correlation method

Comparison across educational and professional trajectories

It runs in the family? Using sibling similarities to uncover the hidden influence of family background in doctoral education and academic careers Jouni Helin1,2 · Juho Jokinen3 · Kristian Koerselman1,3 · Terhi Nokkala1 · Eija Räikkönen2 Accepted: 28 June 2022 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract Family background has been shown to be a strong determinant of educational attainment, yet relatively little is known about the role that family background plays in PhD attainment or in the selection into academic careers. In this study, we estimate sibling correlations from Finnish full population register data to comprehensively assess the importance of family background in selection into academia. Our results show that family background accounts for over a third of the overall variation in becoming a PhD and subsequently an academic—a share which is up to four times as large as implied by conventional comparisons by parental education. However, we did not find evidence that family background would be an exceptionally strong determinant of doctoral outcomes when compared to other educational outcomes. Our findings further suggest that sibling similarities in PhD attainment and academic careers may largely be attributed to sibling similarities in prior educational achievement rather than to other family background characteristics. Keywords Inequality · Higher education · PhD attainment · Academic careers · Sibling correlations Introduction Research on the selection of PhDs and of academic faculty is more relevant now than ever. PhDs and academics are key producers of scientific knowledge, knowledge which in turn has become increasingly important for our continuing social and economic development (Pinto & Teixeira, 2020 ; Välimaa et al., 2016) . In addition to the benefits to society as a whole, a research degree or an academic career can also bring benefits to the individual * Jouni Helin [jouni.t.helin@jyu.fi](jouni.t.helin@jyu.fi) 1 Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 2 Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 3 Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland 1 3 pursuing it. Among other benefits, PhD holders for example usually enjoy relatively high earnings and relatively high employment security (Mertens & Röbken, 2013 ; Britton et al., 2020). The degree of diversity among academics may also influence current and future student generations’ perceptions of who can become an academic (e.g. Gurin et al., 2002) . It is thus important to examine inequalities in selection into academia not only with an eye to social welfare, but also with an eye to fairness in terms of who is selected, and who is not. It is generally accepted that higher education should be open to prospective students regardless of their family background, and this reasoning should reasonably extend also to PhDs and academic careers (cf. Merton, 1979 ; Roemer, 2004) . Yet although there is a sizeable literature on the role which family background plays in selection into the undergraduate level of higher education (e.g. Haas & Hadjar, 2020 ; Marginson, 2016, 2018 ; Reimer & Jacob, 2011 ; Shavit et al., 2007), efforts to quantify the role of background factors in selection into doctoral education or into the academic profession are comparatively scarce. What quantitative evidence on between-family inequalities in selection into academia we do have mostly relies on comparisons by parental socioeconomic status (e.g. Bachsleitner et al., 2018 ; Mastekaasa, 2006 ; Mullen et al., 2003 ; Triventi, 2013), implicitly working off the assumption that all families sharing a specific position in the social hierarchy are alike. This hides a considerable amount of variation in childhood circumstances, and thus causes the importance of family background to be underestimated (Björklund & Jäntti, 2020) . To our knowledge,

FAQs

What research question does the document address about family background?

It asks how family background influences PhD attainment and selection into academic careers, and how this role compares with influences on other educational and professional trajectories.

How are sibling correlations used in the study?

Sibling correlations are estimated from Finnish full population register data to measure the contribution of shared family background to outcomes, capturing both observable and unobservable shared characteristics.

What do the results indicate about the importance of family background?

Family background accounts for more than a third of the overall variation in becoming a PhD and entering academia, and sibling similarities are largely attributed to similarities in prior educational achievement.

Aug 27, 2026

Upload by Seraphina