Hierarchical Needs and Income-Stratified Drivers of Residential Satisfaction in South Korea : Conditional Patterns and Neighborhood Relations

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Understanding how residential satisfaction varies across income strata is essential for targeted housing policy, yet few studies incorporate hierarchical-need perspectives. Using the Korea Housing Survey and a theory-grounded PLS-SEM with hierarchical components, we model residential satisfaction. Some determinants exhibit marked income-specific patterns: Low-income households prioritize basic functionality (β=0.208) and housing space (β=0.602) while placing less emphasis on neighborhood relations (β=0.065); conversely, in higher-income households, neighborhood relations (β=0.118) are more influential than physiological needs (β=0.089) and housing space (β=0.005). Safety (30.2%) and infrastructure accessibility (31%) are primary drivers in all income groups. Our analysis reveals that foundational needs—physiological needs and safety—interact with non-basic domains (accessibility and housing-consumption class), indicating conditional effects compatible with Maslow’s hierarchy in this context. Neighborhood relations, functioning as social capital, partly mitigate safety shortfalls, though their importance declines at lower incomes and becomes clearer once basic housing performance is secured; while safety shortfalls erode infrastructure accessibility benefits in middle/high incomes, they can be buffered by good transit/services among lower-income households. In affluent areas, meeting physiological needs may dampen returns to accessibility/status. These findings suggest a dual strategy: implement deficiency-need upgrades for low-income communities, and enhance external safety plus lifestyle-cultural amenities for high-income communities, prioritizing social-cohesion programs after foundational needs are met.