This article discusses the relationship between schooling and entry into the labor market during a period marked by the impact of production transformations (1988 and 1995), analyzing data on the labor market and educational levels of the Economically Active Populations in Greater Santiago (Chile) and Greater São Paulo (Brazil). In this period, a discourse was developed highlighting the economic value of education, but in had insufficient empirical support to help verify how the population is affected by labor market dynamics and increased accessibility of the educational system. As a goal, international competitiveness is viewed as a tendency which makes it difficult to identify the structural conditions in the relationship between education and work. Thus it does not permit us to learn about the dynamics of the social agents who are faced with a society that constructs a consensus which excludes numerous sectors. For persons from the excluded sectors, a better educational level does not ensure improved living conditions if the inequalities deriving from the labor market structure are not modified. It is exactly in this period of transformation that new divisions tending to deepen the inequalities are being generated.