Though various measures of mobility rate for colleges, e.g. bottom-to-top mobility rate, status maintenance rate, and middle-class mobility rate, have been introduced, they have rarely been reviewed together to see the whole picture of intergenerational mobility, particularly in non-Western societies. This paper fills this gap and characterises mobility rates for 17 different college tiers in South Korea using the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey for 37,552 graduates from 2007 to 2010. It documents two main results. First, mobility rates are higher for males than for females in all three measures, indicating colleges in South Korea are less effective as a social ladder for females. Second, many selective colleges are more likely to play a role as a glass floor than a social ladder due to their lower low-income access, and ‘selective public’ colleges are the engines of upward social mobility for students from the bottom three quintiles. Though people believe education is the single greatest hope to achieve upward social mobility, these findings cast doubt on the idea that college attendance alone can promote social mobility. This paper does not necessarily identify causal relationships that can be manipulated to improve mobility rates; however, it documents various patterns of interest to policymakers.

尽管已经引入了各种衡量大学流动率的指标，例如自下而上的流动率、地位维持率和中产阶级流动率，但很少将它们一起审查以了解代际流动的全貌，特别是在非西方社会。本文填补了这一空白，并使用 2007 年至 2010 年 37,552 名毕业生的毕业生职业流动调查来描述韩国 17 个不同大学等级的流动率。它记录了两个主要结果。首先，在所有三个指标中，男性的流动率都高于女性，这表明韩国的大学作为女性社会阶梯的效果较差。其次，由于收入较低，许多精英大学更有可能扮演玻璃地板而不是社会阶梯的角色，和“选择性公立”大学是底层三五分之一学生向上社会流动的引擎。尽管人们认为教育是实现向上社会流动的最大希望，但这些发现对仅就读大学就可以促进社会流动的观点提出了质疑。本文不一定确定可以用来提高流动率的因果关系；然而，它记录了决策者感兴趣的各种模式。本文不一定确定可以用来提高流动率的因果关系；然而，它记录了决策者感兴趣的各种模式。本文不一定确定可以用来提高流动率的因果关系；然而，它记录了决策者感兴趣的各种模式。