Family economic status and vulnerability to suicidal ideation among adolescents: A re-examination of recent findings

Background: According to the “differential vulnerability hypothesis,” individuals in adverse socioeconomic circumstances as less mentally resilient to stressful events. However, several recent papers radically challenged this hypothesis based on the accumulated literature on stress inoculation and presented cases in which lower-SES adolescents appear to be less vulnerable to suicidal ideation in the face of interpersonal aggression. Objective: We re-examine the link between psychological vulnerability to acute stressors and SES using yearly longitudinal public survey data from South Korea. Participants and setting: This is a secondary data analysis of a multi-year public health panel dataset on South Korean adolescents. Methods: Logistic regression is used to examine the association between suicidal ideation and a range of predictor variables, with a particular focus on the interaction between bullying victimhood and log family income. These variables and the sample were chosen for consistency with recent revisionist research. Results: We reaffirm the well-established finding that bullying victimhood strongly and consistently increases the odds of suicidal ideation (OR = 1.859, p < 0.01). However, we find no evidence in favor of the traditional “differential vulnerability hypothesis” or the recently proposed counterhypothesis. A subsample analysis from the latest wave (W4–W5) did produce results that are consistent with recent revisionist findings, but we suggest this is likely a false positive. Conclusions: There appears to be no systematic association between SES and vulnerability to suicidal ideation in the face of peer aggression among South Korean adolescents. The claim that lower-SES adolescents may be more resilient to stressful events stands on limited empirical support.