Meritocracy’s Children

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Millennials and Gen Z have come of age in a divided world where faith in a better tomorrow is increasingly fragile. And yet, they are still expected to follow a linear progression from school to work to family like their mothers and fathers. Focusing on Seoul and Tokyo, Meritocracy’s Children traces the gap between young adults’ expectations and their lived realities, revealing what they see as unjust—and what they accept. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, Yuki Asahina shows that young adults in Tokyo tend toward resignation, while their counterparts in Seoul experience a sharper sense of deprivation. Across education, employment, and gender relations, abrupt shifts in opportunities in Seoul have fostered a deep sense of betrayal, whereas more gradual transformations in Tokyo have led young adults to see inequality as natural. By linking these differences to culture, social structure, and institutions, the book offers fresh insight into both the nature of social inequality and the zeitgeist of younger generations in contemporary South Korea and Japan.

Yuki Asahina is Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester and coeditor of The Digital Rise of the Far-Right in Japan.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction
1. Same Challenges, Different Responses
2. Stratification of Strategy and Desire in Education
3. Are Schools an Equalizer or Amplifier of Inequality?
4. Inequality of Security
5. How Inequality Leaves Millennials Angry or Resigned
6. How Meritocracy Incites Millennial Men
7. What Millennial Women Find Unjust
Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Appendix: Notes on Data
Notes
Bibliography
Index