A Comparative Study of Occupational Aspirations in Korea and Japan: Occupational Objectives of High School Students and Educational Systems

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper compares the occupational aspirations of high school students in Korea and Japan and explores the factors that determine their desired occupations. Analysis shows that the occupational objectives of Japanese high school students are more diversified than their Korean counterparts; occupational aspirations of Japanese high school students are horizontally differentiated based on the tendency to aspire to the same occupation as their parents and differences in their occupational values orientation, while Korean students’ occupational aspirations are vertically differentiated based on the students’ grades in correlation with the socio-economic status of each occupation. Idealistic occupational and educational aspirations can cool off more easily in Japan than in Korea, and this may lead to the reproduction of social inequality. The author suggests that it is necessary to reduce the selective function imposed on the educational system in order to address the problem of “education fever,” or the overheating educational aspirations in Korea.