It is used to join the primary table of an entity subclass in the JOINED mapping strategy to the primary table of its superclass; it is used within a SecondaryTable annotation to join a secondary table to a primary table; and it may be used in a OneToOne mapping in which the primary key of the referencing entity is used as a foreign key to the referenced entity.

If no PrimaryKeyJoinColumn annotation is specified for a subclass in the JOINED mapping strategy, the foreign key columns are assumed to have the same names as the primary key columns of the primary table of the superclass.

Example: Customer and ValuedCustomer subclass

    @Entity
    @Table(name="CUST")
    @Inheritance(strategy=JOINED)
    @DiscriminatorValue("CUST")
    public class Customer { ... }
    
    @Entity
    @Table(name="VCUST")
    @DiscriminatorValue("VCUST")
    @PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(name="CUST_ID")
    public class ValuedCustomer extends Customer { ... }