Education Inequality in the Republic of Korea: Measurement and Causes

The Republic of Korea (hereafter South Korea) is one of relatively few developing states to experience consistent, significant success in economic, social, and governmental development. Although it began its post-civil war history with a real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of about US$1,459 in 1955, South Korea is now considered a high-income country by the World Bank with a per capita income of US$15,876. With the exception of the 1980 recession and the 1997 Asian financial crisis, South Korea has maintained some of the highest GDP growth rates in the world for the past 45 years (see Table 11.1). Today, it is a global leader in industries ranging from shipbuilding to cellular phones and stem-cell research. The country has likewise experienced remarkable improvements in key indicators, such as life expectancy, infant mortality, and education attainment. In addition, although the country was controlled by authoritarian governments from its establishment in 1948 up to the late 1980s and during the its most extraordinary periods of economic growth, South Korea today is considered a politically stable, liberal democracy.

Although its development experience involved essential cultural, geographical, and historical contexts that cannot be duplicated in today's developing countries, South Korea provides many insights into the question that state leaders, economists, humanitarians, and development experts have struggled with for decades: why are some countries rich and others poor? General explanations for South Korea's success include effective government policies, high rates of saving, a relatively egalitarian distribution of income, large infusions of foreign aid, and East Asian, Confucian values that emphasize thrift, diligence, and discipline (Weil 2005, p.347). The rapid accumulation of human capital following the end of Japanese Colonialism in 1945, however, has been widely recognized as a key piece in South Korea's development puzzle and has been studied extensively (McGinn et al. 1980; Morris 1996; Lopez, Thomas & Wang 1998). Despite significant investment in and accumulation of human capital, however, economic returns in other developing countries have not reached expectations (Holsinger 2005; Pritchett 2001); several scholars have suggested that this may be due to levels of inequality in the distribution of education (Holsinger 2005; Lopez, Thomas & Wang 1998; Thomas, Wang & Fan 2001; Dessus 2001).