Hard Times and Harder Minds: Material Hardship and Marital Well-Being Among Low-Income Families in South Korea

Abstract

Experiencing material hardship may bring various negative consequences for married couples and family members. However, little is known about this topic in Korea. Using a nationally representative sample from the Korean Welfare Panel Study, we examined how material hardship was associated with marital well-being among low-income families in Korea, separately for husbands (i.e., male household heads) and wives. Overall, we found experiencing any material hardship was associated with lower levels of satisfaction of both family life and spousal relationship, consistently for husbands and wives. We also found depression and self-esteem partially mediated the associations in both groups. Furthermore, among individual items of material hardship, experiencing food hardship was associated with lower levels of satisfaction of family life for both husbands and wives, whereas experiencing problems with credit was associated with lower levels of satisfaction of both family life and spousal relationship for wives but not for husbands.