The Contingent Cost of Structural Failure: How Gender, Employment, and Solo Living Condition Depression Risk in Young South Koreans

This study investigates the sharp rise in depression among young South Koreans by analyzing how macro-level structural failures manifest in individual psychological distress. Utilizing Bayesian logistic regression on the 2023 Korea Community Health Survey, we examine the conditional effects of gender, household structure, and social capital. Our results demonstrate that risks are fundamentally contingent, not fixed. The vulnerability of female gender persists across socioeconomic controls and is significantly amplified in office-based employment (OR = 1.49), supporting structural theories of emotion regarding gendered emotional labor. Conversely, the risk associated with one-person households is largely attenuated by income and is highly dependent on social ties; family contact acts as a strong buffer, while friend contact coincides with heightened distress. We conclude that depression is an observable consequence of structural precarity and a compromised system of social support. Policy interventions must shift from individual resilience to addressing economic stabilization and gender equity in the workplace.