A Spatial Approach to Inequality of Opportunity and its Implications for Balanced Regional Development Policy

Jinyoung Jung
Additional contact information
Jinyoung Jung: Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade

Industrial Economic Review from Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade

Abstract: Demands for fairness of opportunity (especially among those born since the 1990s) have made equality of opportunity a central social challenge in South Korea. This paper examines spatial inequality as a source of that concern. Drawing on the Survey of Household Finances and Living Conditions (SHFLC) and 26 waves of the Korea Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS), it finds that gaps between the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) and the rest of the country have widened since the mid-2010s in both household income and the distribution of income classes.

These gaps shape the environments in which children grow up and condition how parental economic position is transmitted to the next generation: among cohorts born after 1975, the advantage of growing up in the SCA is larger for children of higher-income parents. National indicators of income distribution have improved, yet inequality of opportunity persists and is channeled through space.

Keywords: equality of opportunity; geography of opportunity; inequality; analysis of inequality; regional inequality; balanced regional development; South Korea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 J62 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08-31
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in KIET Industrial Economic Review Vol. 31, No. 4

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.kiet.re.kr/en/pub/ecoreviewDetailView? ... ar=2026&month=&sval=
All articles available for download at www.kiet.re.kr.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:kieter:023847

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Industrial Economic Review from Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade Sejong National Research Complex, Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, 370 Sicheong Dae-ro C-dong 8-12F 30147, Republic of Korea. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Aaron Crossen ().