This chapter addresses secondary education attainment and early school leaving, highlighting the importance of completing upper secondary education for labour market entry and employability. Adults without this education level face higher unemployment and lower wages. In Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), enrolment rates have improved, especially in primary education, but challenges in secondary education persist, resulting in low completion rates. Though progress has been made, the proportion of young adults without upper secondary degrees in the region remains higher than in OECD countries. The chapter also notes that females in LAC have higher completion rates than males.
Gender Differences in Education, Skills and STEM Careers in Latin America and the Caribbean
Insights from PISA and PIAAC
Abstract
Completing upper secondary education contributes to successful entry into the labour market and continued employability. In OECD countries, adults who have not completed this level of education have the highest unemployment and inactivity rates, and lower wages over their working lives, in particular, during the years before retirement. A large population of low-qualified workers may lead to significant public expenditure on social security and deepening inequalities that are both difficult and costly to address once people have left education (OECD, 2017[1]).
This chapter examines key indicators across the education lifecycle in LAC, including enrolment (access), retention and grade completion. While enrolment rates have improved, particularly at the primary level, challenges remain in ensuring students stay in school and successfully complete their education. Dropout rates and disparities in attainment continue to highlight gaps in educational equity and quality.
In the last two decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have seen two of its biggest educational successes: one, gender parity in enrolment in primary school, with average net enrolment rates of 97% percent for both girls and boys in 2019; two, a significant increase in the overall net enrolment in secondary education, rising from 60% in 1990 to 78% in 2018 (Figure 2.1) (World Bank, 2023[2]; Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]).
Source: World Bank Indicators; UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
In terms of primary education, Latin America and the Caribbean have nearly universal participation (97%), similar to that of the OECD average (99%). But while enrolment rates in secondary education across LAC countries have improved since 1990, significant challenges in access still persist – the average enrolment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean is 79%, 14 percentage points below the average for OECD countries (93%) (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]).
A low net secondary education enrolment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean could partially explain the low completion percentage at that level. The secondary education completion rate – defined as the percentage of students in a given age group who has successfully finished lower or upper secondary education – is notably lower compared to primary. The average for the LAC region is 65.7%, with Chile, Peru and Bolivia having the highest percentage, and Guatemala, Honduras and Uruguay having the lowest. In other words, over a third of the region's population does not complete this level (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]). While the completion rate in Latin America and the Caribbean is higher than the global average (equivalent to 53.2%), it lags behind the OECD average (80%) by 15 percentage points (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]).
Disaggregating this data by country provides deeper insight into the variation across the region and highlights where progress has been made. Costa Rica and Mexico (along with Portugal and Türkiye) were among the countries in the Education at a Glance (EAG) database (see Box 2.1) with the biggest jumps in the share of young adults completing upper secondary education, with at least 10 percentage points more 25–34-year-olds attaining their secondary education degree between 2016 and 2023 (OECD, 2024[4]). In 2016, the share of young adults (25–34) without an upper secondary degree was 50% in Costa Rica and 53% in Mexico. By 2023, this had declined to 38% and 42%, respectively, with similar reductions in Colombia, Brazil and Peru (OECD, 2024[4]). This reflects the impact of inclusive public policies focused on reducing early school leaving, such as compulsory schooling and second-chance education programmes. Nonetheless, there is more work to be done. Among the five LAC countries for which data on completion rates are available in EAG, the proportion of young adults without an upper secondary qualification remains considerably higher than the OECD average of 14% in 2023 (Figure 2.2).
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Education at a Glance (EAG) offers a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators that reflect a consensus among professionals on how to measure the current state of education internationally. The indicators provide information on the human and financial resources invested in education, how education and learning systems operate and evolve, and the returns to investments in education.
EAG data are compiled by the OECD Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme, which seeks to gauge the performance of national education systems as a whole, rather than to compare individual institutional or other subnational entities
Indicator groups
Indicators on the output, outcomes and impact of education systems: Output indicators analyse the characteristics of those exiting the system, such as their educational attainment. Outcome indicators examine the direct effects of the output of education systems, such as the employment and earning benefits of pursuing higher education. Impact indicators analyse the long-term indirect effects of the outcomes, such as the knowledge and skills acquired, contributions to economic growth and societal well-being, and social cohesion and equity.
Indicators on the participation and progression within education entities: These indicators assess the likelihood of students accessing, enrolling in and completing different levels of education, as well as the various pathways followed between types of programmes and across education levels.
Indicators on the input into education systems or the learning environment: These indicators provide information on the policy levers that shape the participation, progression, outputs and outcomes at each level. Such policy levers relate to the resources invested in education, including financial, human (such as teachers and other school staff) or physical resources (such as buildings and infrastructure). They also relate to policy choices regarding the instructional setting of classrooms, pedagogical content and delivery of the curriculum. Finally, they analyse the organisation of schools and education systems, including governance, autonomy and specific policies to regulate the participation of students in certain programmes.
Statistical coverage
Although a lack of data still limits the scope of the indicators in many countries, the coverage extends, in principle, to the entire national education system (within the national territory), regardless of who owns or sponsors the institutions concerned and regardless of how education is delivered. In general, all types of students and all age groups are included: children (including students with special needs), adults, nationals, foreigners and students in distance learning, in special education programmes or in education programmes organised by ministries other than the ministry of education, provided that the main aim of the programme is to broaden or deepen an individual’s knowledge.
Country coverage
This publication features data on education from all OECD countries and Brazil, a partner country that participates in the INES programme, as well as other G20 and OECD accession countries that are not INES members (Argentina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the People’s Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Peru, Romania, Saudi Arabia and South Africa). Data sources for the non-INES participating countries come from the regular INES data collections or from other international or national sources.
Source: OECD (2023)
Improvements in completion rates are closely tied to broader trends in student progression and grade repetition within the education system. One key factor influencing completion is the rate at which students repeat grades. Over the last decade, the repetition rate in Latin American and Caribbean countries has decreased, which has also led to improvements in completion rates. For example, in the case of primary education, the repetition rate decreased by an average of 1.7 percentage points (from 5.5% in 2010 to 3.8% in 2018) although it is still higher than the OECD average of 1.3% in 2018 (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]). The lower secondary repetition rate is going down as well though it is still higher than in primary education in both OECD and LAC countries.
Continuing a previously observed downward trend (OECD, 2020[5]), the share of 15-year-old students who had repeated a grade continued to fall between 2018 and 2022. While about 11% of students had repeated a grade at least once in 2018 across OECD countries, this figure dropped to 9% in 2022 – an overall decline of nearly 2 percentage points. Some of the largest drops in grade repetition – of at least 6 percentage points – were observed in many LAC countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. In contrast, the grade repetition rate in Colombia remained high, at nearly 40% (OECD, 2023[6]).
Source: OECD, EAG 2024 Database
Despite these positive trends, some countries in the region still have large proportions of young adults without upper secondary attainment. The highest shares are in Costa Rica where 41% of men aged 25–34 years and 36% of women in the same age group have below upper secondary attainment, and Mexico where the shares are 42% for both young men and women. In Argentina, 40% of secondary-school students (both male and female) leave school without a qualification.
Adults without upper secondary attainment face severe challenges in the labour market, reflected in higher unemployment rates and lower wages on average compared to adults with higher levels of attainment (OECD, 2024[4]). As the educational landscape changes, there may be a need to focus on lifelong learning and continuing education to ensure that all individuals can continue to adapt to rapidly changing job markets.
Not only does secondary school enrolment still need to improve, but the gap in most LAC countries has also tended against boys (78% for girls and 76% for boys in 2019 (Figure 2.3) (World Bank., 2021[7]). In many LAC countries, boys also have lower rates of completion of secondary education than girls, starting at the lower secondary level (World Bank., 2021[7]). Upper secondary school completion among girls in Latin America and the Caribbean is 68.7% on average as compared to 61.5% for boys – a difference of almost 7 percentage points (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]).
Net secondary enrolment (2017-2019, latest data)
Source: World Bank Indicators; UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
In Latin America and the Caribbean, high rates of early school dropout also persist: 19% of young people aged 18 to 24 do not attend any level of education and have not completed secondary education (Arias Ortiz et al., 2023[3]). This is especially the case for boys in the region, with a “reverse gender gap” in enrolment and completion predominant in the region: compared to girls and young women, boys and young men are at a higher risk of dropping out of secondary and tertiary education.
This is despite the fact that grade repetition, though a declining practice, is more common among 15-year-old boys than girls surveyed as part of PISA 2022 (OECD, 2023[6]). Among the 81 countries that took part in PISA 2022, 69 countries had more boys than girls who had repeated a grade in either primary or secondary school, with all LAC countries falling in this category. Grade repetition is meant to give students a “second chance” at improving their scores and mastering the knowledge and skills appropriate for their grade level (OECD, 2023[6]). Previous research, however, has found mostly negative effects of grade repetition on student outcomes. Students who have repeated a grade tend to perform less well in school and hold more negative attitudes towards school at age 15 than students who have not repeated a grade in primary or in secondary education; they are also more likely to drop out of high school (Ikeda, M; García, E., 2014[8]; Manacorda, M., 2012[9]). In addition, grade repetition can be a costly policy as it generally requires greater expenditure on education and delays students’ entry into the labour market (Education Endowment Foundation., 2023[10]).
As a result, one of the greatest gender-related challenges in the LAC region has become the generally low attendance, progression and completion rates of boys in secondary and tertiary levels. In most LAC countries, boys’ lower secondary school completion is below that of girls (Figure 2.4).
Lower secondary completion rate, male/female (% of relevant age group), latest data 2019-2023
Note: Numbers represent latest data point in the period 2019-2020. The indicator is calculated as the number of new entrants in the last grade of lower secondary education, regardless of age, divided by the population at the entrance age for the last grade of lower secondary education. A number higher than 100 reflects late entrants and overage students.
Source: World Bank Indicators; UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
High rates of school dropout among adolescents carry significant consequences. Early exit from education limits the skills of new generations entering the workforce. It reduces current productivity and weakens a country’s ability to navigate later stages of the demographic transition when dependency ratios increase. Adolescents who are out of school are more exposed to risks such as teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, violence and crime – challenges that are harder to address outside structured environments. Furthermore, during adolescence an individual’s personality aspects (including planning capacity, organisational skills and decision-making capabilities, among others) are still developing, exiting the school environment prematurely can hinder their development (Kattan and Székely, 2015[11]).
Dropout rates at the upper secondary education level in Latin America and the Caribbean can be attributed to a combination of structural, economic and labour market factors. One of the main drivers is the increasing demographic pressure on upper secondary school systems. This is due in part to more students – particularly from lower-income backgrounds – completing lower secondary education and becoming eligible for upper secondary schooling. While this expansion represents progress in access, it has also led to a higher proportion of vulnerable students entering education systems that are often underprepared to address their specific needs. These students, who have often faced unfavourable socio-economic conditions throughout their lives, may encounter environments in upper secondary education that are not adequately equipped to support them, leading to higher dropout rates. Without sufficient teacher training, psychosocial support and inclusive pedagogical strategies, schools may unintentionally push these students out of the system (Kattan and Székely, 2015[11]).
A second set of factors relates to the broader economic context. Although GDP growth rates across the region have not shown a strong statistical relationship with changes in dropout rates, the sharp decline in inflation over the past two decades has been consistently associated with improved student retention. This suggests that macroeconomic stability plays a crucial role in enabling households to make sustained investments in education. Nonetheless, the benefits of this stability have been offset by the simultaneous influx of students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, which has compounded the pressures on schools. In this context, if macroeconomic conditions had not improved, dropout rates could have been even higher, underscoring the importance of a stable economic environment for education outcomes (Kattan and Székely, 2015[11]).
Labour market conditions also influence dropout patterns. In general, when household incomes increase, families are more likely to invest in their children’s education, reinforcing the idea that most families prioritise schooling when they can afford to do so. However, when wages and employment opportunities for adolescents rise – especially in low-income countries – these can act as a pull factor drawing youth out of school and into the labour market. This substitution effect, where immediate income gains are prioritised over longer-term educational investments, appears particularly strong in countries with the highest early dropout rates, where families face more urgent financial constraints. The effect is especially pronounced among boys, who tend to respond more strongly to labour market opportunities than girls, likely reflecting prevailing gender norms and expectations about income generation and family support (Kattan and Székely, 2015[11]).
With the share of young adults (aged 25–34) without an upper secondary education degree having declined in several LAC countries by around 10 percentage points (see section above), tertiary education enrolment has also increased. However, these gains are not evenly distributed. Today, more than 60% of women in Latin America and the Caribbean are enrolled in higher education compared to fewer than 50% of men (Figure 2.5).This marks a significant shift from 1970 when only 5% of women in the region progressed beyond secondary school (Willige, 2023[12])
Tertiary school enrolment in Latin America and the Caribbean (ratio of total enrolment of eligible men vs women)
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
Latin America and the Caribbean ranks second globally in gender parity in higher education, following Oceania (which includes Australia and New Zealand as well as 12 other countries), according to UNESCO. The region’s gender gap in tertiary education began reversing as early as 1993 – just one year after this trend emerged among countries in the European Union and eight years before this trend emerged worldwide. Panama was the first country in the region to achieve gender parity in tertiary education in 1973, followed by Uruguay in 1979, Argentina in 1989, and Mexico in 2016 (Willige, 2023[12]).
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2022 noted high levels of gender parity in education in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 18 countries having closed their gender gap in tertiary education (WEF, 2022[13]). However, it also pointed out that other countries in the region, including El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, have low enrolment rates for both sexes compared to some of their neighbours. This progress in most LAC countries, however, is significant, as higher levels of female education are linked to reduced economic inequality and the advancement of sustainable development.
Continued growth in women's university enrolment is essential, but equally important is ensuring that labour markets are receptive to their skills and adaptable to their needs. The region has made remarkable strides over the past 50 years – building on this momentum will be crucial for the decades ahead.
Another clear indicator of progress is the rise in the average years of schooling among adults aged 25 to 65. Based on data from the Socio-Economic Database for Latin America and the Caribbean (SEDLAC), average years of schooling increased from 7 years in 1990 to 9.5 years by 2020. This progress has led to a decline in the share of low-educated adults (those with nine years of education or fewer) and an increase in medium-educated (9-13 years) and high-educated adults (more than 13 years). However, Latin American countries still have a larger share of low-educated adults, and a smaller share of medium- and high-educated adults compared to OECD countries.
In most Latin American countries, educational attainment levels are similar for men and women. As of 2019, 38.8% of men and 38.4% of women were classified as low-educated, while 40.0% of men and 37.6% of women were medium-educated. The proportion of low-educated women varies across countries, ranging from 30% or less in Argentina, Chile and Panama to over 50% in El Salvador and Honduras (Figure 2.6). Although women in the region tend to have higher educational attainment than men, their share of highly educated adults remains below the OECD average. For example, 36.7% of working-age women in Argentina, 32.4% in Panama and 31.0% in Chile have more than 13 years of education compared to 42% in OECD countries (OECD, 2023[6]).
Note: The figure displays percentages. The most recent data available on average years of education were used. Low-educated adults are those who attained less than nine years of education. Medium-educated adults are those who attained between nine and 13 years of education. High-educated adults are those who attained more than 13 years of education.
Source: Authors’ calculations using SEDLAC and OECD data
Despite significant progress in enrolment and gender parity at the primary and secondary levels, Latin America and the Caribbean continue to face persistent challenges in ensuring that students – particularly boys – remain in school and complete upper secondary education. Completion of this level is increasingly vital for labour market success and early school leaving limits both individual opportunities and broader economic development.
While several countries in the region have made noteworthy gains in secondary completion rates and reductions in grade repetition, a sizeable proportion of youth still exit the education system prematurely. The reasons are complex and multi-faceted, ranging from structural barriers in the education system to economic pressures and socio-cultural expectations. Boys are disproportionately affected, with higher rates of grade repetition, lower progression through school, and a greater a likelihood of leaving education early, often driven by pressure to enter the labour force early and gendered norms that undervalue their academic engagement. In contexts where wages or job availability for adolescents improve, school-aged youth – particularly boys – may leave school in pursuit of short-term earnings. This substitution effect is strongest in countries with high early dropout rates and more pressing household financial needs. Cultural expectations around boys’ economic responsibilities may further accelerate their early exit from school as families prioritise immediate income over continued education.
Encouragingly, improvements in secondary attainment have coincided with rising tertiary enrolment, especially among women. This reflects a broader transformation in educational access and aspirations across the region. However, narrowing gender gaps in attainment must go hand in hand with strategies to support those most at risk of dropping out. Reducing early school leaving and ensuring that all young people can benefit from quality secondary education will be critical for building a more equitable and prosperous future in Latin America and the Caribbean.
References
[3] Arias Ortiz, E. et al. (2023), The State of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, https://doi.org/10.18235/0005515.
[10] Education Endowment Foundation. (2023), Teaching and Learning Toolkit..
[8] Ikeda, M; García, E. (2014), Grade repetition: A comparative study of academic and non-academic consequences, OECD Publishing, https://policytoolbox.iiep.unesco.org/library/UNNTJFH3.
[11] Kattan, R. and M. Székely (2015), Analyzing the Dynamics of School Dropout in Upper Secondary Education in Latin America: A Cohort Approach., World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 7223, https://ssrn.com/abstract=2585798.
[9] Manacorda, M. (2012), The Cost of Grade Retention, https://doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00165.
[4] OECD (2024), Education at a glance 2024: OECD indicators.
[6] OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption, PISA, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/a97db61c-en.
[5] OECD (2020), PISA 2018 Results (Volume V): Effective Policies, Successful Schools, OECD Publishing, https://doi.org/10.1787/ca768d40-en.
[1] OECD (2017), Educational attainment and investment in education in Ibero-American countries, https://centroestudios.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2017/07/50-EN-Educational-attainment-and-investment-in-education.pdf.
[13] WEF (2022), Global Gender Gap Report 2022, https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2022/.
[12] Willige, A. (2023), This is how Latin American women came to be more educated than men, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/04/women-s-education-gender-gap-latin-america/.
[2] World Bank (2023), Can we achieve gender parity in education while leaving boys out of school?.
[7] World Bank. (2021), Reducing boys’ school dropout and helping boys at risk., http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/936601642743773671.