Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

In Privilege and Anxiety, Hagen Koo examines what has happened to the Korean middle class in the era of neoliberal globalization and demonstrates that global economic change brought more profound changes than mere economic decline and shrinking size to this class.

Globalization has inserted an axis of polarization into the middle class, separating a small minority that benefits from the globalized economy from the large majority that suffers from it. This internal differentiation generates a challenging dynamic within Korean society, as the newly affluent seek to distinguish themselves from the rest of the middle class to establish a new, privileged class position. Privilege and Anxiety explores how these tensions play out in three areas: consumption and lifestyle, residential differentiation, and education. In all three areas, the dominant orientation of the affluent middle class is to preserve their newfound privilege and to pass it onto their children. Their new class practices, Koo argues, bring great anxiety to both the winners and losers of neoliberal globalization.

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Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

In Privilege and Anxiety, Hagen Koo examines what has happened to the Korean middle class in the era of neoliberal globalization and demonstrates that global economic change brought more profound changes than mere economic decline and shrinking size to this class.

Globalization has inserted an axis of polarization into the middle class, separating a small minority that benefits from the globalized economy from the large majority that suffers from it. This internal differentiation generates a challenging dynamic within Korean society, as the newly affluent seek to distinguish themselves from the rest of the middle class to establish a new, privileged class position. Privilege and Anxiety explores how these tensions play out in three areas: consumption and lifestyle, residential differentiation, and education. In all three areas, the dominant orientation of the affluent middle class is to preserve their newfound privilege and to pass it onto their children. Their new class practices, Koo argues, bring great anxiety to both the winners and losers of neoliberal globalization.

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Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

by Hagen Koo
Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era

by Hagen Koo

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Overview

In Privilege and Anxiety, Hagen Koo examines what has happened to the Korean middle class in the era of neoliberal globalization and demonstrates that global economic change brought more profound changes than mere economic decline and shrinking size to this class.

Globalization has inserted an axis of polarization into the middle class, separating a small minority that benefits from the globalized economy from the large majority that suffers from it. This internal differentiation generates a challenging dynamic within Korean society, as the newly affluent seek to distinguish themselves from the rest of the middle class to establish a new, privileged class position. Privilege and Anxiety explores how these tensions play out in three areas: consumption and lifestyle, residential differentiation, and education. In all three areas, the dominant orientation of the affluent middle class is to preserve their newfound privilege and to pass it onto their children. Their new class practices, Koo argues, bring great anxiety to both the winners and losers of neoliberal globalization.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781501764929
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 07/15/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 162
File size: 4 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Hagen Koo is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. He is the author of Korean Workers.

What People are Saying About This

John Lie

Having written brilliantly on South Korea's working class, Hagen Koo shifts his focus to its middle class. Privilege and Anxiety is a crowning achievement of a distinguished career and is requisite reading for anyone interested in contemporary South Korea or the middle class more broadly.

Jennifer Jihye Chun

An urgent and timely study of Korea's middle class. Koo offers a highly compelling argument that captures the zeitgeist of this demographic.

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