Education Policy and Population Redistribution: High School Equalization and Interregional Migration in South Korea

• In Event: Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 6. Education

Abstract

This study examines the cumulative effects of high school equalization policy on interregional migration in South Korea, analyzing how education reform intervenes in household residential choice and reshapes spatial social structure. While prior research has primarily focused on the policy’s impact on academic achievement or housing prices, less attention has been given to the process through which educational institutions interact with households’ long-term educational strategies and translate into actual mobility behavior. This study conceptualizes education policy not as a mere change in school administration, but as an institutional signal that restructures the opportunity framework within which households make residential decisions. Using administrative interregional migration data from October 2022 to October 2025, the analysis constructs a panel dataset at the origin–destination–month level and designs a cumulative policy exposure variable (policy_flow_t) to capture sustained institutional influence. The analysis employs Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood (PPML) models with origin, destination, and month fixed effects to account for structural regional differences and temporal shocks. The results indicate that migration from non-equalized areas to equalized areas increased significantly relative to other directional flows, and this effect remains robust after controlling for destination employment and crime rates. Distance-based heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the policy effect is concentrated in short-distance moves within the same broader region, while long-distance migration shows limited responsiveness. These findings suggest that high school equalization policy facilitated localized residential adjustments within existing life-space constraints rather than large-scale population redistribution. By demonstrating how education policy reshapes social inequality and spatial differentiation through aggregate migration patterns, this study broadens the sociological understanding of education reform as a driver of population processes.

Author

• Hwajung Kim, Yonsei University