| Contents |
Introduction: The fractured middle -- The rise and fall of the Korean middle class -- Rising inequality -- Consumption and class distinction -- Class making, Gangnam style -- Educational class struggle -- In pursuit of global education. |
| Abstract |
"Privilege and Anxiety is about the transformation of the Korean middle class over the past four decades. The Korean middle class grew rapidly during the period of industrial development and provided a social base for the political stability and democratic transition in the 1980s. But it began to decline abruptly from the mid-1990s and is now widely believed to be in deep economic and social crisis. Hagen Koo argues that, rather than focusing on the shrinking size of the middle class and the rise of a distinctly inegalitarian society, the more significant change to the middle class is actually qualitative, namely that the Korean middle class has transformed from a relatively homogeneous, fluid, and upwardly mobile class into an internally divided, fractured, and anxiety-ridden class."-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Issued in other form | Online version: Koo, Hagen, 1941- Privilege and anxiety. Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2022 9781501764936 |
| LCCN | 2022003849 |
| ISBN | 9781501764943 |
| ISBN | 9781501764912 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1501764918 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1501764942 paperback |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic publication |
