Who are the bachelors? – Capturing degree heterogeneity within the tertiary level in comparative perspective

Around the globe, countries face rapid educational expansion since the second half of the 20th century (OECD, 2023). In contrary to educational expansion after World War II, the so-called new millennium higher education expansion, mainly affects the tertiary level (Jungbauer-Gans, 2018; Schofer & Meyer, 2005). The share of higher education graduates has increased steadily between 1995 and 2015 so that in 2015 more than half of the working-age population obtained a tertiary degree in Canada, Ireland, Belgium and the US (Sauer et al., 2022). As a result of these expansion dynamics, heterogeneity within the tertiary level became increasingly relevant to explain societal outcomes such as employment opportunities, income inequality and social mobility (e.g. Pfeffer & Hertel, 2015). Among other things, this plays out through the degree structure (...)