• 한국사회정책
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.157-179
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• 2017

In Korea, 'spoon class discourse' has attracted public attention in the press and among young people, which reflects that mass awareness that the class status structure is clearly rooted in the society becomes widespread. Although income distribution has been improved since late 2000s, it is interesting that Korean people's subjective perception concerning class mobility and social justice has been worsemed. By using the survey data on people's perception of opportunity inequality, this study finds that Korean people have by and large negative subjective awareness regarding socio-economic opportunity inequality, magnitude of opportunity inequality, and achievement by efforts, and that the degree of the negative perception is greater in accordance with the people's subjective identification. The regression analysis reveals that the social status of respondents and their parents(-), experience of discrimination(+), age(-), and high education of college and above (+) have consistent effect over socio-economic opportunity inequality, magnitude of opportunity inequality, and achievement by efforts with statistical significance. More concretely, as people have lower subjective status identification at the time of parent generation and their own generation, as they have the experience of discriminatory misconduct, and as they are young and highly educated, they have negative or pessimistic perception regarding opportuinity inequality. In addition, it is revealed that the unemployed and non-regular workers have significantly negative perception on socio-economic opportunity inequality, magnitude of opportunity inequality, while negative perception on the magnitude of opportunity inequality and achievement by efforts is noticeable among high and middle income households.