Religion and Depression in South Korea: A Comparison between Buddhism, Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism

Abstract

Abstract:Over the past few years, the occurrence of depression in South Korea has significantly increased. Even though Buddhism was the main religion in historical South Korea, Christianity has recently emerged as a dominant faith tradition. However, the relationship between religion and depression among older Korean adults is understudied. The present study is designed to investigate religious variations and the role of religious participation in depression among older Korean adults using the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA). From the KLoSA database, 6817 participants were extracted and analyzed. Utilizing the Korean version of the 10-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D 10) and the generalized linear models (GLM), a significant difference in depressive symptoms between religious groups (p < 0.05) and religious nones surfaced. This significant difference remained even after adjusting for the confounding factors. When the levels of depressive symptoms were compared across various faith traditions, the lowest depression score was detected from Buddhists (7.04), followed by Roman Catholics (7.12), and Protestants (7.71). Moreover, a significant difference in depressive symptoms between Buddhists and Protestants was observed. With regard to the frequency of religious participation, a significant difference in the depression score was observed only for Protestants. That is, the depression score for those who reported attending religious meetings 'once to six times a year' was significantly higher than the others. It is concluded that those who are religiously involved had significantly less depression symptoms than religious nones. Moreover, of the three faith traditions, Buddhists and Protestants showed a significant difference in depressive symptoms.

Sustainability of religious communities

“…The number of Christians in South Korea started to decrease at -1.4% starting in 2005, and PCK members declined after 2009 as well. Some PCK churches became inactive and did not recruit enough new members to sustain themselves [ 28 , 54 ]. In order to stabilize and avoid extinction, the segment of believers needed to be replenished, which can happen when those who left the church rejoin it, and when new-born children become Christians [ 55 ].…”