The political economy of education and skills in South Korea: democratisation, liberalisation and education reform in comparative perspective

ABSTRACT

The success story of Korean economic development is intimately linked with the so-called developmental state; and education policy, as part of centrally orchestrated industrial policy, played a critical role in the country's rapid industrialisation, which allowed for high employment rates, relatively modest social inequality and remarkable social mobility. However, the Korean success story has started to show ‘cracks’ – with labour market dualisation, rising inequality and ‘over-education’. While acknowledging the importance of the East Asian financial crisis as external shock for the Korean political economy, we suggest more fundamental problems in the socio-economic and socio-political underpinnings of the developmental state and its education and skills formation system for understanding how Korea's economic and education miracle turned into ‘education inflation’, skills mismatch and social polarisation.

KEYWORDS:

• South Korea
• Private Education
• Skills Formation
• Industrialisation
• Democratisation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge generous support from the British Academy and Korea Foundation, which facilitated the research of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timo Fleckenstein

Timo Fleckenstein is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on labour market, family and education policies with a particular interest in the comparison of Europe and East Asia. Timo's work has been published in World Politics, Comparative Political Studies and West European Politics, among others.

Soohyun Christine Lee

Soohyun Christine Lee is a Korea Foundation Lecturer in Korean and East Asian Political Economy in the Department of European and International Studies at King's College London. Her work investigates the transformation of East Asian welfare capitalism with an empirical focus on labour market, family and education policy. She also has a keen interest in comparing East Asian and European welfare state reforms. Soohyun's research has been published in World Politics, Comparative Political Studies and Social Politics, among others.