Empirical Analysis on the Effect of Social Class on Social Capital and Political Activity in Korea

Abstract

This thesis attempts to investigate the effect of social class on social capital and political activity. Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Korea has experienced tremendous changes in various fields. One of the significant changes was the collapse of the middle class. Since then, social class has been paid attention as it was believed to influence many social phenomenon. The previous study argued that Koreas regionalism voting started to change, and that social class plays an important role in determining voting behavior. Accordingly, this thesis raises questions how does social class affect the formation of social capital and political activity. Before the thesis moves on to the main argument the topic, it was necessary to examine the relationship between social capital and political activity, which has long been studied in political science. The thesis draw on the fourth wave of World Value Survey in seventeen OECD countries and conducted multivariate regression analysis between social capital and political activity. The findings suggest a strong association between social capital and political activity, especially individual trust, social norms, network, sex, age, income, education, size of town determine political participation in a statistically significant manner. In the case of Korea, the thesis pays attention to the effect of social class in the relationship between social capital and political activity. To verify the relationship, the thesis considers social class as the only independent variable and regards others as dependent variables. The analysis provides evidence that those belong to higher social class are highly likely to have (1) greater level of public confidence

(2) wider network

(3) and higher education. Finally, this thesis attempts to check validity of the indices of the social capital and political activity. The data analysis using the result of the seventeenth presidential election in Korea and Seouls 25 district-level statistics identifies the validity of such indices of social capital and political activity.