A Social Ladder or a Glass Floor? The Role of Higher Education in Intergenerational Social Mobility: Empirical Evidence from South Korea

Though various measures of mobility rate for colleges, e.g. bottom-to-top rate, status maintenance and middle-class have been introduced, they rarely reviewed together to see the whole picture intergenerational mobility, particularly in non-Western societies. This paper fills this gap characterises rates 17 different college tiers South Korea using Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey 37,552 graduates from 2007 2010. It documents two main results. First, are higher males than females all three measures, indicating colleges less effective as a social ladder females. Second, many selective more likely play role glass floor due their lower low-income access, ‘selective public’ engines upward students bottom quintiles. people believe education is single greatest hope achieve these findings cast doubt on idea that attendance alone can promote mobility. does not necessarily identify causal relationships be manipulated improve rates; however, it patterns interest policymakers.