The Impact of Housing Price Inequality on Middle-aged Adults’ Perceptions of Social Mobility - Focusing on the Moderating Effect of Social Capital -

This study aims to examine the effect of housing price inequality on perceptions of socioeconomic mobility and to analyze the moderating role of social capital.For this purpose, data from the Seoul Survey (2018-2023) were utilized, and a multilevel ordered logistic regression model was employed to simultaneously account for both individual-and district-level variables.The analysis revealed that middle-aged groups tend to perceive socioeconomic mobility more positively as housing price inequality intensifies, and the effects of social capital differed by specific factors.In particular, help, altruism, and trust in government were found to mitigate the impact of inequality, whereas trust in friends and neighbors amplified it.These findings highlight the necessity of considering the conditional effects of social capital when examining the relationship between housing price inequality and mobility perceptions, and they suggest that policy approaches should reflect both the specific characteristics of middle-aged groups and the variations in the type and level of social capital.