Kim Koo Forum on Korea Current Affairs

Date:  October 6, 2016 - 4:30pm - 6:00pm

Location:
Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room (S050), CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge Street

Hyunjoon Park 

Hyunjoon Park is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Sociology and Education at the

University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D in Sociology from the University of

Wisconsin-Madison in 2005. Park is interested in educational stratification and family in

cross-national comparative perspective, focusing on South Korea and other East Asian societies.

In recent years, he has studied consequences of rapid family changes for children’s well-being

in societies which have weak public welfare systems and conservative family norms.

Park has published a single-authored book, Re-Evaluating Education in Japan and Korea:

De-mystifying Stereotypes (2013 Routledge) and coedited a book, Korean Education in

Changing Economic and Demographic Contexts (with Kyung-Keun Kim, 2014 Springer) and a

previous volume (Vol. 17) of Research in the Sociology of Education (Globalization, Changing

Demographics, and Educational Challenges in East Asia with Emily Hannum and Yuko Butler, 2010).

Park is the coeditor of the annual series, Research in the Sociology of Education (with Grace Kao).

Chaired by Paul Y. Chang, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

Abstract

During the last few decades, South Korea has experienced dramatic changes in major family

behaviors, which are often more pronounced than corresponding trends in the West.

By comparing the trends in three family behaviors ? marriage, divorce, and living arrangements,

at the bottom and top of socioeconomic hierarchy, this study demonstrates that rapid changes

 in family behaviors have not been uniform across social class. Instead, Korea has seen

growing class divide in marriage and divorce, particularly due to the plummeting marriage rate

and soaring divorce rate among the low educated. Meanwhile, the more educated are more likely

to live with their family members than the less educated. This study concludes with implications of

growing polarization of family behaviors for inequality in the next generation.