Patterns of adverse childhood experiences and social isolation in young adulthood: Evidence from South Korea

Social isolation has emerged as an increasingly important social risk among young South Koreans. Prior research has suggested that social isolation in young people can be the result of the accumulation of negative experiences during childhood. Negative events that occur in childhood leave psychological scars. Although previous studies have explored associations between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and psychosocial outcomes, there has been a lack of research into how different patterns of ACEs are associated with social isolation. Therefore, this study aims to (a) examine latent classes of ACEs among South Korean young adults and (b) investigate associations of each latent group of ACEs with social isolation. Data from the 2021 Youth Socio-Economic Reality Survey of Korean National Youth Policy Institute was used, and a total sample of 1,940 individuals aged 19-34 years old was included. For analyses, latent class analysis was conducted to identify the types of classes, and a set of regressions was performed to find the association between classes of ACEs and the sub-dimensions of social isolation (social support, loneliness, social contact). The LCA found four classes of membership within ACEs: High ACEs, High abuse and household mental illness, Moderate economic hardship and loss of close one, and Low ACEs. Unexpectedly, High abuse and household mental illness class showed the most prominent result, followed by High ACEs class. The class of Moderate economic hardship and loss of close one was only significantly associated with the social contact, and it had similar levels of social support and loneliness with the Low ACEs class. The results imply that ACEs involving violence and ACEs without violence could result in different psychosocial outcomes in young adulthood.