We study how stereotypes and discrimination create persistent economic inequality at three key stages of individuals’ lives: university admissions, choice of a field of study, and labor market entry. Across three countries, we focus on how differential treatment of individuals because of their socioeconomic background, gender, or age at those stages can change their behavior and access to economic opportunities, affecting their longer-term outcomes. First, we study how the performance of admitted students in a university program affects the admission of subsequent students with similar backgrounds, leveraging a recent reform which increased selectivity in university admissions in France. Second, we investigate how anticipated labor market discrimination by female students in the US and Sweden distorts their decision to go into male-dominated fields of study, combining student surveys with transcripts of grades and register data. Third, we use a Swedish payroll tax cut giving firms incentives to hire young workers to document how exposure of individual firms to young workers changes firms’ perceptions of these workers, affecting subsequent hiring and the positions young workers are hired for.