Changing perceptions of societal trust among Koreans: Relative deprivation, downward mobility, and sociotropic concern

This chapter examines how Korean people's sense of societal fairness (i.e., social trust) has shifted over time (from 2004 to 2014). To that end, it focuses on the roles of egocentric and sociocentic economic concerns. In a bivariate strati-fied analysis, sociotropic concern is shown to have a significantly positive effect on societal fairness at both time points: people who hold a more positive evaluation of the state of Korean economy place higher social trust in 2004 and ten years later. Relative deprivation in terms of household finance also emerges as a consistent and negative predictor of social fairness. Intergenerational downward mobility, however, is negatively related only in 2014. In a multivariate framework that includes back-ground (socioeconomic and demographic) controls, the effect of sociotropic concern remains robust across time. However, the relationship between relative deprivation and social fairness in 2004 is no longer significant. In other words, the two measures of egocentric economic considerations (relative deprivation and intergenerational downward mobility) significantly correlate with social trust only in 2014. Findings from this chapter suggest that during the decade since 2004, some Koreans may have experienced a worsening sense of economic inequality, real or imagined. And this most likely translated into greater grievances and perceptions of society as being more "unfair." A major takeaway from this chapter is that, all else equal, those who feel more relatively deprived, as well as those who experienced downward mobility vis-à-vis their parents, have come to believe that society is less trustworthy (more 'unfair').