Clark Sorensen presents a description of the economic and ecological organization of rural Korean domestic groups and an analysis of their adaption to the changes brought about by Korea's rapid industrialization.

Still one of the only book-length studies of rural, peasant Korean households, Over the Mountains Are Mountains shows how the industrialization of Korea led neither to the proletarianization of the peasants nor to a fundamental change in the structure of rural families, but rather to strategic changes in patterns of migration, labor allocation, and residence.