Social inequality in the conclusion of secondary education and the progression to tertiary education: A multinational analysis with cases from Southern Europe and Latin America

This article analyzes inequality in educational opportunity (IEO) in the probability of finishing secondary education and accessing tertiary education across birth cohorts of 22 countries, including two Southern European (Spain and Portugal) and three Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile and Mexico). Two of the most influential hypotheses of comparative multinational research are evaluated: Mare’s selectivity hypothesis and Raftery and Hout’s Maximally Maintained Inequality hypothesis. The results show that both hypotheses are not supported by empirical trends, particularly when measures of IEO are based on relative risks rather than odds ratios. Southern European and Latin American countries show the highest inequality levels, particularly in the conclusion of secondary education, and early industrialized countries experience a displacement of inequality from secondary to tertiary education. In addition, IEO is greatly reduced in the early stages of the educational expansion process. This suggests that it is necessary to revise some of the most influential hypotheses on educational stratification research in light of the experiences of countries with late and more heterogeneous experiences of industrialization.