Changes in Early Labor Market Outcomes among Young College Graduates in South Korea

• Author: Jaesung Choi,Hannah Bae
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716220906779

ANNALS, AAPSS, 688, March 2020 115

DOI: 10.1177/0002716220906779

Changes in

Early Labor

Market

Outcomes

among Young

College

Graduates in

South Korea

By

JAESUNG CHOI

and

HANNAH BAE

906779ANN The Annals of The American AcademyChanges in Early Labor Market Outcomes in South Korea

research-article2020

The unemployment rate among youths (age 20–29) in

South Korea has increased sharply from 6.6 percent in

2002 to 9.8 percent in 2016. At the same time, the col-

lege entrance rate remains around 70 percent, and skill

mismatch among college goers is a critical policy con-

cern. Little attention has been paid to temporal change

in labor market outcomes among college graduates or

to the kinds of graduates who are particularly vulnera-

ble to labor market uncertainty. We investigate how

labor market experiences for college graduates have

changed over time using data from nine different

graduating cohorts of the Graduate Occupational

Mobility Survey (GOMS). The results reveal that the

proportion of those searching for a job has increased

over time, and that even for those who were employed,

job quality deteriorated. We also find a growing gap in

labor market outcomes by reputation of graduating

universities and college major.

Keywords: college graduates; South Korea; labor

market outcome; college major; GOMS

The youth (age 20–29) unemployment rate

in South Korea has increased sharply, from

6.6 percent in 2000 to 9.8 percent in 2016. As

presented in Figure 1, the increase is especially

striking from 2011 to 2016 and depicts a dra-

matic contrast with the trend for the entire

population. Examining unemployment by edu-

cation level reveals that the greatest increase is

among young people with a college degree or

Jaesung Choi is an associate professor in the Department

of Global Economics at Sungkyunkwan University in

Seoul, Korea. His research interests are labor, education,

and program evaluation. His research focuses on evalu-

ating education and labor market policies in Korea.

Hannah Bae is a doctoral student in the Economics

Department at the University of California, San Diego.

Her fields of interest are labor economics and econom-

ics of education. She uses empirical analysis to

understand the labor market for youth and the elderly

in Korea.

Correspondence: jaesungc@skku.edu

116 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

greater education, in contrast to the pattern in the first decade after 2000, when

the unemployment rate was higher among those with a high school degree or less

education (Korean Statistical Information Service [KOSIS] 2017).

NOTE: This work was presented at the international conference “Labor Market Uncertainties

for Youth and Young Adults” at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore,

November 9–10, 2017. This work was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean

Studies through the Ministry of Education of Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion

Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2016-LAB-2250002).

FIGURE 1

Labor Market Statistics in Korea, 2000–2016