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Roots of inequality, socio-spatial inequalities and political polarization in South Korea with three essays
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Han, Seungwoo. Roots of inequality, socio-spatial inequalities and political polarization in South Korea with three essays. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-c936-jn26

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TitleRoots of inequality, socio-spatial inequalities and political polarization in South Korea with three essays
NameHan, Seungwoo (author); Xiang, Jun (chair); Schwenkenberg, Julia (member); Shafto, Patrick (member); Kwon, Hyeok Yong (member); Rutgers University; Graduate School - Newark
Date Created2022
Other Date2022-05 (degree)
SubjectPolitical science, Inequality, Polarization, South Korea
Extent166 pages
DescriptionThis doctoral dissertation consists of three separate studies under the main theme ‘Inequalities and Polarized Society.’ For chapter one, this study identifies the roots of inequality of opportunity in South Korea by applying algorithmic approaches to survey data. In contrast to extant studies, I identify the roots of inequality of opportunity by estimating the importance of variables, interpreting the estimate results, and analysing the importance of individual variables, instead of measuring inequality of opportunity. I apply decision tree classification algorithm, light gradient boosting machine, and SHapley Additive exPlanations to estimate the importance of the studied variables and interpret the estimate results. According to the estimate results, the region where the individuals grew up, their gender, and their father’s job during their childhood were the main factors contributing to inequality of opportunity. This study proves that the considerable regional disparity and social environment perpetuate gender inequality in the South Korean society. It argues that an individual’s socio-economic achievements are strongly influenced by their father’s background, thus, outweighing other family background-related factors. Individuals receive unequal opportunities owing to a combination of region, father’s background, and their own gender, thereby, affecting their socioeconomic achievements. If these factors remain influential from birth to adulthood, removing the conditions that structure them would be one way to achieve equality of opportunity.For chapter two, this study approaches the spatial stratification phenomenon through a data-based social stratification approach. In addition, by applying a dissimilarity-based clustering algorithm, this study analyzes how regions cluster as well as their disparities, thereby analyzing socio-spatial inequalities. Ultimately, through map visualization, this study seeks to visually identify spatial forms of social inequality and gain insight into social structure for policy implications. The results determine how the regions are socioeconomically structured and to identify the social inequalities between the spaces.
For chapter three, this study analyzes political polarization among the South Korean elite by examining 17 years’ worth of subcommittee meeting minutes from the South Korean National Assembly’s standing committees. Its analysis applies various natural language processing techniques and the bidirectional encoder representations from the transformers model to measure and analyze polarization in the language used during these meetings. Its findings indicate that the degree of political polarization increased and decreased at various times over the study period but has risen sharply since the second half of 2016 and remained high throughout 2020. This result suggests that partisan political gaps between members of the South Korean National Assembly increase substantially.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-c936-jn26
LanguageEnglish
CollectionGraduate School - Newark Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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