Ageing and Loneliness: A Life Course and Cumulative Disadvantage Approach

Abstract

Loneliness is emerging as a significant issue in modern societies with impacts on health and wellbeing. Many of the existing studies on loneliness focus on its contemporaneous correlates. Drawing on life course and cumulative disadvantage theory and data from qualitative interviews with 50 older adults living in the community, we examine how past events shape variations in later-life loneliness. We identify four factors that are of significance for understanding loneliness: (1) Formation of social networks; (2) history of familial support; (3) relocation and migration, and (4) widowhood and separation. Our findings point to the importance of maintenance of social ties over the adult life course while at the same time highlighting how disruptions to social networks impact on later-life loneliness. We also find that loneliness and disadvantage, like other social or health outcomes, compound over time.

Life-Course Perspective on Immigrant Loneliness: A Conceptual Framework for Intergenerational Loneliness Trajectories

“…Long-term patterns of continuity and change across diverse aspects of an individual's and a family's (or a society's) life are called trajectories (George, 1993); examples include immigration and parenting trajectories. Loneliness can be linked to prior life experiences in addition to the present environment and surroundings, and four elements are crucial to comprehending loneliness: a background of familial support; building and sustaining relationships; relocating and migrating; and the death of a spouse and divorce (Lam et al, 2022). Disparities in loneliness are frequently associated with different life-course trajectories (Yanguas et al, 2018).…”