Open Access
The promised land of equal opportunities? : spatial, temporal, and life course approaches to educational inequality
Loading...
Files
Lintunen_2025_SPS.pdf (6.57 MB)
Full-text in Open Access
License
Access Rights
Cadmus Permanent Link
Full-text via DOI
ISBN
ISSN
Issue Date
Type of Publication
LC Subject Heading
Other Topic(s)
EUI Research Cluster(s)
Initial version
Published version
Succeeding version
Preceding version
Published version part
Earlier different version
Initial format
Author(s)
Citation
Florence : European University Institute, 2025
EUI; SPS; PhD Thesis
Cite
LINTUNEN, Lotta Wilhelmiina, The promised land of equal opportunities? : spatial, temporal, and life course approaches to educational inequality, Florence : European University Institute, 2025, EUI, SPS, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94069
Abstract
This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of educational inequality and social stratification, examining how disparities in educational attainment are produced, reproduced, and transformed across spatial and temporal contexts and individual life courses. Utilizing population-level administrative register data from Finland, the dissertation comprises three empirical studies addressing sibling similarity in education at the regional level, the dynamics of performance and choice effects in upper secondary schooling, and the accumulation of educational inequality across early and mid-adulthood. The first study reveals substantial within-country variation in sibling correlations in educational attainment (0.21–0.39), highlighting that regional disparities in inequality are significantly greater than previously documented in the Nordic context and correlated with the homo- or heterogeneity of the regional socioeconomic structure. Most of the regional variation (81%) in sibling correlations is explained by observed parental education and occupational status, while residual differences show minimal association with regional contextual variables. The second study explores the evolution of educational stratification in upper secondary school choice over the 1990s and 2000s, identifying gender-specific trajectories: increasing class-based differences among females driven by performance (primary effects) and declining inequalities among males primarily due to reductions in secondary effects. The third study adopts a lifecourse perspective, demonstrating that the offspring of highly educated parents spend, on average, 4.4 years longer as university graduates compared to peers from low-educated backgrounds, with both the timing and duration of educational attainment shaping these stratified outcomes. Collectively, the findings advance understanding of the mechanisms and processes underpinning educational inequality, revealing how both individual background and institutional structures intersect and evolve geographically, over time and life courses—even in a comprehensive and formally egalitarian education system. Methodologically, the dissertation bridges classical and contemporary theories of social mobility with rigorous life-course approaches and introduces the novel measurement of Expected Years as a University Graduate to capture long-run educational inequality.
Table of Contents
Additional Information
Defence date: 21 November 2025
Examining Board: Prof. Juho Härkönen (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Herman Van den Werfhorst (European University Institute); Prof. Kristian B. Karlson (University of Copenhagen); Prof. Erzsébet Bukodi (University of Oxford)
Examining Board: Prof. Juho Härkönen (European University Institute, Supervisor); Prof. Herman Van den Werfhorst (European University Institute); Prof. Kristian B. Karlson (University of Copenhagen); Prof. Erzsébet Bukodi (University of Oxford)