Working Paper

Institute for Future Strategy

IFS Working Paper 2026-01 (Vol. 2)

Social Polarization and National Integration in South Korea

The Structure of Perceived Social Mobility and Its Implications for Social Attitudes: A Comparison of Intragenerational and Intergenerational Mobility Perceptions

Inkwan Chung (Professor, Department of Information Sociology, Soongsil University)

This study distinguishes subjective perceptions of social mobility into intragenerational and intergenerational mobility perceptions and empirically examines their distribution, determinants, and relationships with social attitudes. Using data from the 2026 National Survey on Conflict Resolution and Social Integration in South Korea, commissioned by the Institute for Future Strategy at Seoul National University and conducted by Hankook Research, the study reports three main findings. First, South Koreans are relatively more optimistic about intragenerational mobility than intergenerational mobility. Second, the determinants of the two types of mobility perceptions differ in important respects. Third, the two perceptions are associated with social attitudes in distinct ways. Perceived intragenerational mobility is associated with opposition to higher taxes on high-income earners and rejection of meritocracy, whereas perceived intergenerational mobility is associated with support for higher taxes and greater acceptance of socially marginalized groups. These findings suggest that previous studies treating mobility perceptions as a single dimension may have obscured heterogeneous effects operating in opposite directions. The study concludes by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of distinguishing between intragenerational and intergenerational mobility in designing social mobility narratives for social integration.

Keywords: perceived social mobility, intragenerational mobility, intergenerational mobility, POUM hypothesis, redistributive attitudes, meritocracy, tolerance