diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index e42d0ffd3..77d8cad3e 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ check-style:
 
 # depend on install-all so that downgrade scripts are installed as well
 check: all install-all
-	$(MAKE) -C src/test/regress check-full
+	# explicetely does not use $(MAKE) to avoid parallelism
+	make -C src/test/regress check
 
 .PHONY: all check clean install install-downgrades install-all