KLRI : KOREA LEGISLATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Ⅰ. Backgrounds and Purposes

○ If the level of parents’ income, education, and job is high, the socioeconomic status of the children tends to be high regardless of their efforts or abilities. In other words, the succession of social and economic status between generations is strongly observed.

○ This causes great socio-economic side effects such as conflicts between generations or classes, weakening social integration, inheriting poverty and health inequality, slowing economic growth, and so on.

○ Until now, empirical researches have been conducted focusing on clarifying the factors or phenomena from a sociological or economic point of view as a problem of ‘Social Mobility’.

○ This study comprehensively and systematically examines policies and legal systems in the fields of education, welfare and employment from the perspective of developing policy tools that can increase social movement based on previous studies, seeking the direction of policy and legislation.

 

Ⅱ. Major Content 

▶ Significance and necessity of ‘Social Mobility’

○ ‘Social Mobility’ refers to the concept of “the degree to which a specific individual or group’s social class or class position moves,” and is explained by concepts such as in-generational or inter-generational mobility, relative or absolute mobility, income, education, job mobility, structural or cyclical mobility, and etc.

○ The meaning of ‘improving’ ‘social mobility’ means that reducing the influence of parents on the socio-economic status of their children, ensuring that one individual is equally guaranteed for opportunities for education or job, and laying the foundation for institutionalization to supporting to find a proper socio-economic position through fair competition. 

○ This is to realize fair competition and equal opportunity guaranteed in the Constitution, and this study seeks a specific direction for institutionalization through the meaning of our constitutional provisions on education, welfare, and employment.

▶ Review of policies and legislations in the fields of education, welfare, and employment

○ The factors that mainly affect social mobility are income, education, and occupation, and the areas that systematically control them are education, employment, and welfare. Inequality in these areas has a chain of interrelated relationships and affects social mobility.

○ Therefore, it is necessary to examine the current status of policies and legislations in the fields of education, employment, and welfare, and to seek the direction of institutionalization so that inequality in each area can be alleviated and operated in a harmonious virtuous cycle. 

○ In the field of education, it is critical that through the educational system, students acquire knowledge and skills necessary for employment, thereby laying the foundation for entry into the job market, reducing the influence of parents, and ensuring the equality of educational opportunity under the Constitution.

○ Specifically, in the field of education, this study examines that: ① the expansion of free high school education in relation to ensuring equal educational opportunities, promoting the enactment of the 「Basic Academic Achievement Guarantee Act(draft)」 and the 「Special Act on the Promotion of Public Education Normalization and the Regulation of Prior Education」 for supporting the internalization of basic learning abilities, ② improvements to the university admission system, such as the establishment of social integration quota to strengthen the fairness of education ③ review of the 「Act on the Development of Local Universities and Colleges and Regional Human Resources」 to support education for low-income families and to bridge the educational gap between regions, and ④ vocational education and various links with the industry and employment markets, and the status of laws and regulations.

○ In the welfare sector, income inequality is alleviated through the social security system, fair competition and opportunities are secured through various supports for the socially vulnerable, and social mobility is to be improved.

○ Specifically, this study examines the current status of policies and legislations in the welfare sector through the contents of the ‘Reinforcement of the Social Security Net through Improving Income Distribution and Job Expansion’ and the recently announced the ‘2nd Basic Social Security Plan’ promoted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, looking at the issue of ‘basic income which has been actively introduced in recent years from the perspective of social mobility.

○ Social mobility is closely related to ‘income’, that is, entry into the high-quality job market, thus it is important to promote employment so that entry into high-quality jobs can be realized in the employment sector, and to bridge the gap in the job market and employment security net.

○ Specifically, in the field of employment, the 「The Framework Act on  Employment Policy」, 「Special Act on the Promotion of Youth Employment」, 「Act on Promotion of Economic Activities of Career-Interrupted Women, etc.」, 「Act on Prohibition of Age Discrimination in Employment and Elderly Employment Promotion」 and etc. are examined because it is important to increase household income by entering the job market for young people, career-interrupted women, and elderly people who have not previously entered the job market in relation to social mobility. 

 Discussion on the amendments of the 「Fair Hiring Procedure Act」 in relation to the fairness of employment opportunity, the recently enacted the 「Act on Parallel Support for Work and Study in Industrial Fields」, the 「Act on Employment Promotion and Support for Life Stability for Job Seekers」 and 「Employment Insurance Act」 related to the employment security net are reviewed.

▶ Characteristics of policies and legislations related to ‘Social Mobility’

○ In line with the global low growth trend, the trend of policies and legislations focusing on relative social movement using tax and welfare policies is increasing.

○ As a result, legislations in the form of typical support legislations that entail considerable finance are increasing, and discussions on the introduction of measures such as support for specific groups and classes and employment quotas are increasing.

▶ Considerations for Policies and legislations related to ‘Social Mobility’ 

○ From the perspective of social mobility, policies and legislations should consider system design in terms of whether it brings ‘income redistribution effect’, guarantees the value of ‘equality of opportunity and fairness’, and drives ‘economic innovation and growth’.

○ In the legislative process, considering whether the principle of equality is violated, reviewing the adequacy of regulatory, protection, support measures,  and financial requirements not to cause reverse discrimination against specific group, the priority of the policies should be determined and introduced. 

○ The development of related indices and indicators and the implementation of the ‘Social Mobility Impact Assessment System’ to consider “social mobility” can be introduced when promoting policies.

▶ Improvement of education, welfare, and employment legislations to enhance social mobility

○ Regarding the education legislations, follow-up legislations of the 「Framework Act on Education」 in line with the expansion of the ‘free education’, the legislation of ‘social integration screening’ and considerations for local talents employment to bridge the educational gap between regions, consideration for enacting the 「Basic Academic Achievement Guarantee Act (proposal)」, and plans to link vocational education, university/college enrollment and employment.

○ Regarding the welfare legislations, the establishment of welfare fiscal principles for “social mobility”, selection of welfare measures taking into account the effect of income redistribution, consideration of welfare gap and equity, and considerations in the legislative process are suggested.

○ Regarding the employment legislations, considerations from the level of equality principles when introducing the employment quota system to promote employment, problems with the prohibition of forced recruitment and the amendment of employment cancellation under the 「Fair Hiring Procedure Act」, improvements in the vocational training system, unemployment assistance and employment insurance system, etc., and review of the expansion and introduction of ‘negative income tax’ are suggested.

 

Ⅲ. Expected Effects

○ From the perspective of social mobility, analyzing education, welfare, employment policies and legislations to demonstrate a convergence effect between policies and legislations.

○ Providing legislative alternatives and institutional foundations for education, employment and welfare for inclusive growth and bridging the gap.