Lee, S;
(2021)
A Social Ladder or a Glass Floor? The Role of Higher Education in Intergenerational Social Mobility: Empirical Evidence from South Korea.
Higher Education Policy
10.1057/s41307-021-00241-1.
(In press).
Preview |
Text
5. Manuscript_Open Access.pdf - Accepted Version Download (856kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Though various measures of mobility rate for colleges, e.g. bottom-to-top mobility rate, status maintenance rate, and middle-class mobility rate, have been introduced, they have rarely been reviewed together to see the whole picture of intergenerational mobility, particularly in non-Western societies. This paper fills this gap and characterises mobility rates for 17 different college tiers in South Korea using the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey for 37,552 graduates from 2007 to 2010. It documents two main results. First, mobility rates are higher for males than for females in all three measures, indicating colleges in South Korea are less effective as a social ladder for females. Second, many selective colleges are more likely to play a role as a glass floor than a social ladder due to their lower low-income access, and ‘selective public’ colleges are the engines of upward social mobility for students from the bottom three quintiles. Though people believe education is the single greatest hope to achieve upward social mobility, these findings cast doubt on the idea that college attendance alone can promote social mobility. This paper does not necessarily identify causal relationships that can be manipulated to improve mobility rates; however, it documents various patterns of interest to policymakers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A Social Ladder or a Glass Floor? The Role of Higher Education in Intergenerational Social Mobility: Empirical Evidence from South Korea |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1057/s41307-021-00241-1 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-021-00241-1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Education & Educational Research, bottom-to-top mobility rate, status maintenance rate, middle-class mobility rate, intergenerational social mobility, higher education |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10138838 |
Loading...
Loading...Loading...Loading...Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
