The spatial dimension of human capital segregation: An empirical investigation for Seoul, Korea

Abstract

This research note examines changes in the spatial patterns of human capital segregation in Seoul, Korea from 1995 to 2005, and investigates whether spatial clusters of human capital can be isolated across neighborhoods in the metropolitan area. The major finding is that the proportion of college-educated individuals in the population aged 25 years and over increased significantly over the 1995–2005 period, and human capital segregation declined. However, the spatial distribution of human capital is by nature clustered and tends to be more clustered over the period. The neighborhoods with relatively high level of human capital tend to be localized close to other neighboring areas with high level of human capital. Most of these neighborhoods are located in the southern parts of Seoul, and these spatial clusters, which can be considered as hot spots of human capital, persist throughout the period. These results may have important implications for how the spatial dimension of human capital segregation contributes to the manner through which neighborhood effects of human capital impact metropolitan socioeconomic outcomes.

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Yonsei University Research Fund (2005-1-0338) and partially by a grant from the Urban and Transportation Science Research Center at Yonsei University. The author would like to thank Se Jong Son and Jae-Bum Cho for their assistance in assembling the data for this study. The author wishes to thank the Editor of the Social Science Journal, N. Prabha Unnithan, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier version of the manuscript.