This paper examines systematic inequalities in the sorting of students to university degree programs with regards to first-in-family (FIF) to attend university and gender. Using linked administrative data on the population of Portuguese applicants, we document that FIF students consistently match to lower quality degrees across the entire achievement distribution, while only the highest achieving female students relatively undermatch. Then, leveraging Portugal?s deferred acceptance centralized admissions system, we establish that these enrollment gaps are due to differences in student application patterns. We show these gaps remain after accounting for measurement error in student quality, through alternate measures and a lagged instrument approach. The paper concludes by exploring which factors do account for the gaps, finding that initial location explains much of the FIF gap, and degree subject closes the gender gap.

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1 October 2026

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Labour Economics 1022026

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DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2026.102922

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537126000746?via%3Dihub

This Journal article is published under the centre's Education programme.