University supply expansion and inequality of opportunity of access: the case of Uruguay

Abstract

This paper examines whether opportunity of access to public university has improved over the period 2008 to 2013 in Uruguay; in which an important territorial expansion of the public university supply, historically located in Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), to other regions of the country (named Interior) took place. For this purpose, an opportunity index for access to university is elaborated; which combines in a single measure coverage to a certain opportunity (access to university), and the distribution of access between different groups of population conditional on their circumstances (a measure of inequality of opportunity). Results suggest that opportunities of access to University improved over the period; driven by an increase in the average coverage rate. However, inequality of opportunity of access worsens over the period, especially for the Interior, as new entries to university are relatively more from better-off socioeconomic family backgrounds than those from worse-off family backgrounds.

Inequality of Opportunity in Elementary Level School Education: Evidence from India

“…First, similar to the extant literature on several Latin American and Sub Saharan African countries, we also find parental education as the most important circumstance (see for example, Dabalen et al (2015) for Sub-Saharan Africa, Méndez (2020) for Uruguay). Parental education (comprising both father and mother) alone contributes more than 50% of the unfair schooling access of their children even in 2012.…”