한국사회의 사회계층 간 여가소비의 구별

Differentiation between Social Class Leisure Consumption in Korea: By Focusing on Art and Culture

Bourdieu's cultural capital theory suggests that the upper class prefer only upscale leisure consumption in order to ‘distinguish’ them from the lower class. In contrast, Peterson's omnivore theory propose that the upper class has wider range of leisure consumption than the lower class has. In other words, according the omnivore theory, the upper class is likely to consume both upscale and popular style of leisure, while the lower class is likely to consume only popular leisure style. Using a secondary national survey data on Korean people's art and culture consumption, this study empirically examined which of the two theories were more appropriate to modern Korean society. Results showed that overall the upper class preferred upscale types of art and culture, while the lower class preferred popular culture. However, results also indicated that the upper class participated not only upscale types of art and culture but they also actively participated in popular culture such as movie watching. Results of this study show that omnivore theory is more appropriate in understanding social class based leisure consumption in Korean society.