This study aims to evaluate social mobility in South Korea and develop policy recommendations to improve it. Chapter 2 of PartⅠ presents a theoretical discussion on the concept and definition of social mobility. It also analyzes public perceptions of social mobility based on data from the Social Survey and the Korean Welfare Panel Study, and income mobility along with key findings from Income Mobility Statistics of the Ministry of Data and Statistics (formerly Statistics Korea). Chapter 3 of PartⅠcovers the results of the National Survey on Public Perceptions of Social Mobility conducted with 3,000 respondents in 2025. PartⅡ then examines social mobility across specific topics and offers policy implications, focusing on employment, assets, education, disability, and gender.
The key implications are twofold. First, the analysis reveals that social mobility in Korea is shaped by the interplay between intragenerational and intergenerational mobility. This indicates that enhancing social mobility requires a multidimensional approach, rather than policies limited to a single domain. Second, the analysis confirms that intergenerational transfers play a major role in influencing social mobility. Differences in parental circumstances exert a substantial influence on the future resources and socioeconomic status of the children’s generation. To enhance social mobility, two policy directions are recommended. First, improving social mobility and income distribution requires integrating governance mechanisms and strengthening statistical capacity. Second, in order to address disparities in the economic resources held by parents across different socioeconomic groups, the introduction of a ‘Social Assets’ scheme is proposed to ensure equal opportunities at the stating point. However, if enhancing equal opportunity alone cannot achieve substantive equality of outcomes, we propose developing policy measures to achieve substantive equality of outcomes through redistribution mechanisms.