A Longitudinal Study on Loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

Abstract

The prolonged COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing socioeconomic and health risk factors and added additional dimensions to the loneliness problem. Considering the temporal extension of COVID-19, which exposes people to various loneliness conditions, we examined the development of loneliness and changing risk factors based on age and gender. We used longitudinal data from Hiroshima University’s nationwide survey in Japan, conducted before and during the pandemic, to categorize loneliness into three types: long-term (feeling of loneliness experienced both before and during the pandemic), post-pandemic (feeling of loneliness experienced throughout the whole pandemic period), and fresh (feeling of loneliness experienced only in the last year of the pandemic). Loneliness categorization is important because the prolonged existence of the COVID-19 pandemic has added additional dimensions to the loneliness problem, which existing studies rarely identify. As a result, the distinction between long-term and fresh loneliness remains unexplained. The weighted logit regression results revealed that many Japanese people have remained or became lonely during the pandemic and identified variations based on gender, age, and changes in socioeconomic and health characteristics. More precisely, almost 52% of the participants experienced long-term loneliness, while 8% of the participants experienced post-pandemic loneliness, and nearly 5% experienced fresh loneliness. Age and having children were associated with long-term loneliness; gender, age, leaving full-time employment, financial literacy, change in health status, and change in depression were associated with post-pandemic loneliness; and gender, having children, living in rural areas, change in household assets, financial literacy, changes in health status, and changes in depression were associated with fresh loneliness. These results indicated that long-term, post-pandemic, and fresh loneliness have distinct characteristics. The Japanese government should devise distinctive solutions for people suffering from varying loneliness before and during the pandemic rather than adopting a generalized approach.

Does the Easing of COVID-19 Restrictive Measures Improve Loneliness Conditions? Evidence from Japan

“…where Y 1i represents a measure of persistent loneliness from 2020 to 2023 of the ith participant; Y 2i is a measure of post-pandemic loneliness; Y 3 i represents prolonged pandemic loneliness; Y 4i represents recent loneliness; X is a vector indicating the changes in demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological features of individuals; ∆X is a vector indicating the change in demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological features of individuals from 2020 to 2023; and ε is the error term. As the dependent variables were binary, we conducted a weighted logistic regression using sampling weights [2,5]. The sampling weights were calculated by dividing the total population of Japan by the sample population stratified by sex and age.…”

“…Our study used various independent variables including demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological characteristics of the survey participants. Similar independent variables have been employed in previous studies, such as Khan and Kadoya [23], Khan et al [2], and Lal et al [5]. The definitions of the variables are presented in Table 1.…”

“…In order to investigate the connection between loneliness and socioeconomic factors, we classified loneliness into four distinct categories: persistent loneliness, which denotes experiencing loneliness continuously over the course of four consecutive years; post-pandemic loneliness, representing the absence of loneliness prior to the pandemic, followed by experiencing loneliness during the pandemic; prolonged pandemic loneliness, indicating the absence of loneliness in the initial two years, followed by experiencing loneliness in the subsequent two years; and recent loneliness, indicating the absence of loneliness in the initial three years, followed by experiencing loneliness starting in 2023. The first three types were adapted from a study by Lal et al [5].…”

“…This distinction is critical for identifying individuals who were at risk of developing loneliness during the pandemic and formulating targeted interventions. In a longitudinal study conducted by Lal et al [5] using Japanese data, 52% of the respondents experienced persistent loneliness, whereas 13% developed loneliness during the pandemic. However, recent changes in health and safety measures and economic activities, spurred by widespread vaccination and reduced hospitalization rates [6,7], have ushered in a return to a semblance of normalcy vis-à-vis socioeconomic life [7].…”

Transitions in sense of coherence among middle-aged women raising adolescents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…People drastically restricted their interactions with intimate ones in the name of social distancing and even changed their behaviour and social norms ( Sugawara et al, 2022 ). The pandemic has also exacerbated health risk factors and chronic loneliness and has had various effects on individuals ( Kikuchi et al, 2020 ; Lal et al, 2022 ).…”