Kwang-Yeong Shin and Arne L. Kalleberg (editors). 2025. Middle Class Challenges and Contested Futures in the USA and South Korea. London: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN: 1-0364-4772-3 (hardback).
This book examines central challenges facing the middle class in the United States and South Korea. The US is the archetype of a liberal market economy with minimal state intervention, while South Korea exemplifies the developmental state, characterized by extensive state involvement in the economy and rapid industrialization and economic growth. Despite their distinct paths to post-industrial economies, the middle class in both nations has experienced labor market instability and widening economic inequality due to neoliberal political-economic labor market policies coupled with inadequate social protections. This book discusses macro-social changes and transformation of the middle class in the two countries, and their consequences for economic inequality, education, and family. It also presents policy ideas for revitalizing the middle class in both countries.
“By considering the USA – a well-established economy where the middle class has long been considered the bedrock of democratic politics – and South Korea, a late developing capitalist economy, with a large but recently established middle class – the contributions to this book trace the challenges for this class in a rapidly transforming global economy. In both countries, the middle class has been battered by crises of neoliberalization. This insightful collection identifies these challenges and their social, political, and employment ramifications, also recognizing trends and possibilities. Rich in data and bringing together leading researchers from both countries, this collection offers an unsurpassed survey of the current state of the middle class.”
– Kevin Hewison, Weldon E. Thornton, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Rebuilding the American Middle Class: Political Economy, Technological Change, and the Future of Work – Arne L. Kalleberg
2. Changes in the Economic Conditions of the Korean Middle-Income Group in the 2010s – Sungkyun Lee and Heeju Shin
3. The Professionalization of the Youth Labor Market on the Road to a Creative/Knowledge Economy: What Does This Mean for the Middle Class? – Hyunji Kwon
4. Middle-Class Income Growth: What to Do? – Lane Kenworthy
5. The Captive Middle Class: Rising Debt and Volatility of the Middle Class in South Korea – Kwang-Yeong Shin
6. Trends in the Academic Achievement of Children from Middle-Class Families in the United States and South Korea: 1995–2019 – Soo-yong Byun
7. The Korean Middle Class and Conservative Politics: Urban Space and Place Identity in Gangnam – Myungji Yang
8. Navigating an Uncertain Future: How American Young Adults Narrate their Experiences of Economic Insecurity and Social Upheaval in the 21st Century – Jennifer M. Silva
9. Converging Narratives Amid Diverging Destinies: Economized Narratives of Marriage and Childbearing in South Korea – Young-Mi Kim, Inseo Son, Eunji Kim and Rieun Kim
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