Farming and fisheries are two sectors with strong intergenerational ties. The occupational choice of farmers’ and fishers’ children is therefore of central importance when it comes to future industry structure and the total number of workers in these sectors.

In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of the intergenerational links in agriculture and fisheries in Sweden using a large administrative database covering the entire farmer and fisher population. The use of intergenerational matched administrative data is new to the literature and makes it possible to avoid problems associated with survey response data.

To identify the factors that affect children’s occupational choice, we estimate an instrumental variable probit model, where we focus on the importance of the father’s earned income. We show that father income during childhood affects children’s decision to follow in their father’s footsteps.