Utilizing data from the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this study examined socioeconomic disparities in expected occupational status among children in South Korea, in comparison with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Significant socioeconomic disparities in expected occupational status among children were observed across all four countries, including Korea. However, the extent of these disparities varied across the countries. The gap in children's expected occupational status between the bottom 10% and top 10% distribution of parental socioeconomic status (SES) was largest in the United Kingdom and smallest in the United States. The degree of socioeconomic disparities in expected occupational status among Korean children was approximately twice as large as that of the United States. No significant differences were found between Korea and the United Kingdom and between Korea and Japan. Further, regression analysis showed that the impact of SES on expected occupational status among Korean children was significantly larger than that in the United States, but there were no significant differences in the magnitude of the SES effect between Korea and the United Kingdom and between Korea and Japan. As such, the observed socioeconomic differences in expected occupational status among Korean children align more closely with those observed in the United Kingdom and Japan than those in the United States. These findings were discussed within the framework of Turner (1960)’s theory of contested versus sponsored mobility.