"A serious limitation of the inheritance feature is that indexes (including unique constraints) and foreign key constraints only apply to single tables, not to their inheritance children. This is true on both the referencing and referenced sides of a foreign key constraint." http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/ddl-inherit.html#DDL-INHERIT-…

gistfile1.sql

CREATE TABLE people (
    id serial primary key,
    name text
);
 
CREATE TABLE scientists (
    university text
) INHERITS (people);
 
CREATE TABLE chefs (
    hat_size text
) INHERITS (people);
 
CREATE TABLE people_i_like (
    person_id integer references people(id),
    reason text
);
 
insert into scientists    values (default, 'Alice', 'MIT');
insert into chefs         values (default, 'Bob', 'medium');
 
insert into people_i_like values (1, 'taught me math');
--ERROR:  insert or update on table "people_i_like" violates foreign key constraint "people_i_like_people_id_fkey"
--DETAIL:  Key (person_id)=(1) is not present in table "people".