Leaders should do more ensure equal opportunity for all
Korea has to solve many problems if it is to become a society of greater equality, vitality and social mobility. Article 10 of the Constitution stipulates that all citizens shall be assured of human worth and dignity and have the right to pursue happiness. No doubt, equality is crucial to human dignity and happiness.
Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, however, Korean society has changed into one where only the wealthy can feel dignified, valued and happy. Moreover, inequality has been widening more rapidly here than anywhere else in the world.
A recent OECD report shows, for example, half of Korean managers' children become managers while only 25 percent of manual laborers' children do so. The report attributes the falling social mobility to difficulties young people and women experience in job markets.
It also cited the dual structure of the labor market as the main reason for low mobility among people in the bottom layers. The wages of temporary workers are far lower than those of full-timers, and most senior workers fall to part-timers pushed out of the job market at an increasingly younger age.
It is a small surprise then it takes five generations for Koreans in the bottom 10 percent of the income bracket to move up to median-income households, longer than the OECD's average of 4.5 generations. The richest 10 percent possess 45 percent of the wealth, the second-highest in the world after the U.S.
If the socially weak are pessimistic about their lives and the number of people who give up all hope increases, social problems are bound to aggravate. When Korea becomes a hereditary society in which parents' socioeconomic status decides their children's fate, it will have lost all the ladders for upward mobility.
Also, if parents' wealth determines education opportunities, which serve as the primary channel for upward mobility, it will threaten one of the most fundamental values in a democracy _ equal opportunity. Do we have to provide any more reasons why leaders should make Korea a society where even the underprivileged can have hope?
Korea has to solve many problems if it is to become a society of greater equality, vitality and social mobility. Article 10 of the Constitution stipulates that all citizens shall be assured of human worth and dignity and have the right to pursue happiness. No doubt, equality is crucial to human dignity and happiness.
Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, however, Korean society has changed into one where only the wealthy can feel dignified, valued and happy. Moreover, inequality has been widening more rapidly here than anywhere else in the world.
A recent OECD report shows, for example, half of Korean managers' children become managers while only 25 percent of manual laborers' children do so. The report attributes the falling social mobility to difficulties young people and women experience in job markets.
It also cited the dual structure of the labor market as the main reason for low mobility among people in the bottom layers. The wages of temporary workers are far lower than those of full-timers, and most senior workers fall to part-timers pushed out of the job market at an increasingly younger age.
It is a small surprise then it takes five generations for Koreans in the bottom 10 percent of the income bracket to move up to median-income households, longer than the OECD's average of 4.5 generations. The richest 10 percent possess 45 percent of the wealth, the second-highest in the world after the U.S.
If the socially weak are pessimistic about their lives and the number of people who give up all hope increases, social problems are bound to aggravate. When Korea becomes a hereditary society in which parents' socioeconomic status decides their children's fate, it will have lost all the ladders for upward mobility.
Also, if parents' wealth determines education opportunities, which serve as the primary channel for upward mobility, it will threaten one of the most fundamental values in a democracy _ equal opportunity. Do we have to provide any more reasons why leaders should make Korea a society where even the underprivileged can have hope?
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