We Must Rebuild the Collapsed Ladder of Social Mobility
As real estate and stock prices soared, the divide between those who could borrow and those who could not has widened the wealth gap, critics point out. In a joint column for Financial Consumer News, economics and finance columnist Kwon Eui-jong and energy and education policy expert Lee Wang-ro made this argument, calling for a policy shift to restore the value of labor income and rebuild the ladder of social mobility.
According to the two experts, those with the capacity to service debt reaped capital gains from rising asset prices, while vulnerable groups with limited access to loans or burdened by high interest rates suffered a widening relative income gap and deepening poverty. As a result, debt has acted not as a ladder for upward mobility but as a barrier that entrenches existing inequality. A structural gap has emerged in which labor income alone cannot keep pace with the compounding speed of asset income.
This inequality is being passed down across generations. With skyrocketing home prices, it has become nearly impossible for young people to buy a home or build assets on labor income alone, entrenching a structure in which an individual's wealth is determined less by ability or effort than by how much debt their parents can shoulder on their behalf. Young people with wealthy parents build an early economic foundation by acquiring assets, backed by financial support and loan guarantees. By contrast, those who cannot count on parental support spend much of their income on housing costs and interest due to high-rate jeonse (lump-sum rent) loans or monthly rent burdens. Doctors Kwon and Lee pointed out that a cycle has taken hold in which the assets and creditworthiness of the parent generation determine the children generation's capacity to take on debt, which in turn hardens into a wider wealth gap, giving rise to a 'spoon-class society' where inherited privilege, not effort, defines economic status.
The weakening of the ladder of social mobility extends beyond the economic sphere. The difficulty of buying a home on labor income alone has spread to declining engagement in the workplace, get-rich-quick speculation, a rise in socially withdrawn hermits, and the structural problem of ultra-low birth rates driven by young people giving up on marriage and children. Conflict between classes divided by asset ownership fuels social distrust and undermines national unity, the analysis finds; as polarization deepens, reliance on populist policies grows, perpetuating a cycle that obstructs fundamental structural reform.
To break this chain, the two experts stressed that a bold policy transformation is needed to restore the value of labor income and rebuild the ladder of social mobility. They called for fundamentally shutting down a structure of asset speculation fueled by debt, while dramatically expanding public housing supply and asset-building support infrastructure so that young people and ordinary citizens can achieve housing stability without going into debt. Dr. Kwon Eui-jong said, "Consolidating a fair field of opportunity and re-erecting the ladder of social mobility is the last golden hour to save a community groaning under the wall of debt."
