Differentiation of lower class middle class in korea
Answers
From the 1960s onward, Korea’s rapid economic growth brought about very great
change in the country’s social structure. Looking at the change in the composition of
the working population in the three major industrial sectors (shown in Table I), in
1960 the primary sector employed two-thirds of all workers; by 2000 this had
shrunk to about 10 per cent. Thus in the course of one to two generations there was a
rapid movement of the labor force into the secondary and tertiary industrial sectors.
Such significant change in the composition of the working population also meant
a change in the class structure of the society. Relying on population census data,
Hong, Kim, and Jo (1999) showed how extensively Korea’s class structure changed
during these three decades (Table II). Particularly striking was the rapid decline of
the agricultural class, and the equally rapid growth of the new middle class made up
mainly of white-collar workers.
Table II also shows that during this same period the working class expanded as
fast as or even faster than the new middle class. This was because manufacturing
was the principal driving force of Korea’s economic growth, and this sector had a
very high capacity for absorbing workers.