Social Support Patterns and Determinants in Contemporary Korean Society

Scholarly attention to social support and its positive effect on healthrelated outcomes has surfaced in South Korea since the 1990s, but social support processes within the context of personal communities have yet to be fully researched. The access to social support is influenced by multiple factors: socio-demographic background, intrapersonal variables, and interpersonal and social relationships. The current paper is the first work to examine patterns and determinants of enacted support, emotional and instrumental, in Korean society with the latest data representative of the national population. The sources of support and the risk of social isolation considerably vary depending on sex, age, educational attainment, and marital status. Family members play a primary role in both types of support particularly for older and married adults. Men are more vulnerable to loneliness in an emotional dimension, while those who are unmarried, divorced, separated, or widowed are at a higher risk of social isolation in times of financial difficulties. In addition to sociodemographic differences, our analysis indicates that psychological factors such as interpersonal stress and generalized trust are more involved in the source of emotional support and its absence, while social engagement and daily contact with kin are keys to seeking out confidants. Patterns of instrumental support are more influenced by family-related factors such as family life satisfaction and the number of family members living together, in addition to the amount of daily contact with non-kin.