Loneliness among men and women – a five-year follow-up study

Abstract

The results demonstrate that loneliness is influenced by events and experiences from early childhood to later life, and that some events and experiences influence loneliness in men and women differently.

Who often feels lonely? A cross‐sectional study about loneliness and its related factors among older home‐dwelling people

“…However, a longitudinal study (Dahlberg et al., ) reported that there was a significant increase in often feeling lonely for both men and women in old age during a period of 7 years. Previous studies (Dahlberg et al., ; Nicolaisen & Thorsen, ) showed that gender was not independently related to loneliness. In fact, in the present study, we also found the same result.…”

“…Living alone emerged as a strong factor independently associated with often feeling lonely in our regression analysis and has been found to be a strong factor related to loneliness in the study by Nicolaisen and Thorsen (); however, those older adults who live alone and simultaneously feel lonely are probably not part of a homogeneous group. The loss of a partner by death was found to be an important event that leads to loneliness in old age (Dahlberg et al., ; Nicolaisen & Thorsen, ) and recently entering into widowhood was found to be strongly related to loneliness (Dahlberg et al., ). However, living alone and being lonely may also relate to one's personal barriers to relationship involvement (Nicolaisen & Thorsen, ).…”

“…The loss of a partner by death was found to be an important event that leads to loneliness in old age (Dahlberg et al., ; Nicolaisen & Thorsen, ) and recently entering into widowhood was found to be strongly related to loneliness (Dahlberg et al., ). However, living alone and being lonely may also relate to one's personal barriers to relationship involvement (Nicolaisen & Thorsen, ).…”

Correlation Studies Between Big Five Personality Traits, Age and Loneliness

“…Extraversion is a negative predictor of loneliness in the age group 40 to 50 years, that is, the absence of extraversion predicts the presence of loneliness. Characteristics such as lowself-esteem, shyness and low assertiveness can predispose people to loneliness andmight also make it more difficult to recover from loneliness [4,8,11,16,[17][18].…”

“…The greatest feelings of loneliness were in social situations when women felt like they had nobody to share responsibility; when they felt that finances were a limiting factor. When they felt out of place at a certain time or event, both men and women were found to be lonely [10][11].…”