HIGH PROSPERITY, HIGH INEQUALITY: HOW NEIGHBORHOOD CONDITIONS ACTIVATE CLASS VOTING

Abstract

This study investigates how neighborhood economic contexts condition the link between social class and electoral choice. Merging five waves of the Korean General Social Survey (2010–2014) with administrative housing records, this research assigns respondents two contextual variables: neighborhood prosperity, measured by mean apartment price, and neighborhood inequality, proxied by the price coefficient of variation. Using Erik Olin Wright’s class schema, multilevel linear probability models reveal a clear context-dependent regularity where class differences in conservative voting appear most pronounced when high prosperity coincides with high inequality. In these settings, capitalists are significantly more likely to support conservative parties, whereas working-class voters become less inclined to do so as prosperity and inequality rise, a pattern consistent with threat perceptions among the affluent and relative deprivation among lower-status groups. Conversely, where either prosperity or inequality is moderate, class gaps tend to narrow or disappear. The new middle class and petite bourgeoisie occupy intermediate positions, shifting their allegiances contingent on the local economic mix. Although the cross-sectional data warrant caution regarding causality, the results suggest that visible economic contrasts within prosperous neighborhoods are closely associated with sharper class divides at the ballot box. Broadly, this analysis demonstrates the value of combining survey evidence with asset-based contextual measures to clarify when class remains a meaningful axis of electoral conflict, highlighting the need for longitudinal research on neighborhood effects.