Perceptions of Increasing Economic Inequality Are Associated with Psychological Distress in East Asia: Evidence from China and South Korea

초록

Economic inequality is a key challenge of our time. Prior research investigating the relationship between economic inequality and mental health has yielded inconclusive results, particularly when relying on objective indicators (e.g., Gini coefficients). While some studies have found a negative relationship, others have shown no significant association. A growing body of work suggests that these inconsistencies may reflect the fact that objective indicators do not adequately capture how inequality is experienced and appraised by individuals. In the present study, we examined the relationship between perceptions of increasing economic inequality and psychological distress in two East Asian countries-China and South Korea. Through two secondary data analyses, we consistently found that individuals' subjective perception of increasing economic inequality was associated with greater psychological distress. Notably, this subjective perception yielded a larger effect than objective inequality as measured using Gini coefficients. Furthermore, among the objective measures of economic inequality, we found that wealth inequality-specifically, house-price Gini coefficient-was more strongly associated with psychological distress compared to income inequality. We speculate that this may be because wealth inequality is more visible in people's immediate environments. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the mental health effects of economic inequality, emphasizing the importance of subjective and context-specific experiences of economic inequality.

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