Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Contemporary life is increasingly shaped by rising living expenses, debt pressure, long working hours, commuting burdens, chronic stress, sleep problems, and fragile social relationships. Existing studies often examine these issues separately through concepts such as financial stress, time poverty, health burden, or work–family conflict, leaving limited integration of how these burdens operate together. This academic article proposes a four-dimensional framework of life costs covering financial, temporal, health, and relational burdens. The framework explains how these burdens accumulate and overlap across the life course under the process of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. By synthesizing interdisciplinary literature, the article identifies mechanisms through which interconnected burdens reinforce one another and affect subjective well-being, economic security, mental health, and life opportunities. The article also discusses policy implications for middle-income countries, particularly Thailand, and argues for multidimensional measures to reduce life costs and develop integrated measurement tools for evidence-based public policy.
Authors: Kruasom, Taisith, Jaensirisak, Sirirut
Institution: Ubon Ratchathani University
Language: Thai
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7215409419