Newspaper reading and income effects

Yang Jung-ho, a professor of education at Sungkyunkwan University, has announced that his analysis of the National Statistical Office`s survey on private-lesson spending in 2013 showed the higher the incomes of parents, the more likely their children belong to the top 10 percentile of test scores. In elementary schools, students whose parents earn more than 4 million won (3,529 U.S. dollars) a month on average showed a higher rate of being in the top 10 percentile of grades than that of the overall income distribution. In contrast, students with lower-income parents were more likely to be in the bottom 20 percentile.

French economist Thomas Piketty warned in his 2013 book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" that the roles of hereditary assets will grow bigger with increasing social inequality. Capitalist society, he argued, will strengthen inequality from generation to generation, ultimately regressing to a "closed society" where the movement of hierarchy will be impossible. He stressed that we are living in society where parents determine their children`s socio-economic statuses.

The Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training tracked down for 11 years 4,000 students at general and vocational high schools in 2004, when they were in their last year of high school. According to the study, 1,849 students whose parents were subscribing to newspapers won an average of 96.5 points out of 200 in Languages area, compared with an average 89.35 points won by 2,301 others whose parents were not newspaper subscribers. The institute polled the same respondents, inquiring them of their current occupation and wage levels this year. As a result, 32.2 percent of the students from newspaper-subscribing homes had what are considered "good jobs," higher than the 26.6 percent shown by non-subscriber students.

Students whose parents earned 2 million won (1,764 dollars) but subscribed to newspapers earned three to four points more per subject in the College Scholastic Ability Test than those whose parents made 2 to 4 million won a month but did not subscribe to newspapers. The former group`s rate of getting good jobs was higher than that of the latter by 4.2 percentage points. Parents` incomes and education backgrounds could affect their children`s scholastic performances or occupation. However, it can be said that reading newspapers have a greater influence than the parental factors. It is regrettable that the spread of digital devices is keeping more and more students away from newspapers.

swpark@donga.com