Loneliness around the world: Age, gender, and cultural differences in loneliness

Abstract

The BBC Loneliness Experiment provided a unique opportunity to examine differences in the experience of lonelines across cultures, age, and gender, and the interaction between these factors. Using those data, we analysed the frequency of loneliness reported by 46,054 participants aged 16–99 years, living across 237 countries, islands, and territories, representing the full range of individualism-collectivism cultures, as defined by Hofstede (1997). Findings showed that loneliness increased with individualism, decreased with age, and was greater in men than in women. We also found that age, gender, and culture interacted to predict loneliness, although those interactions did not qualify the main effects, and simply accentuated them. We found the most vulnerable to loneliness were younger men living in individualistic cultures .

Social and emotional loneliness among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic: the predictive role of coping behaviours, social support, and personal resilience

“…In a large scale study comprising 35,712 UK adults, younger adults were found particularly at risk of experiencing severe loneliness during the pandemic in comparison to the older age group (Bu et al, 2020). This result also lends support to earlier studies, which reported younger people to be signi cantly lonelier than older respondents (Barreto et al, 2020;Child & Lawton, 2019). A few possible explanations are offered here.…”

“…With regards to gender, the results of our study showed higher levels of social loneliness among female students when compared to their male counterparts. An increased social loneliness score in female students may be explained by the fact that women, compared to men, value participation in social activities more highly, prefer greater interpersonal connectedness, and are more sensitive to the interpersonal context (Barreto et al, 2020, thus making them more vulnerable to social loneliness during a mandatory lockdown where social contact with peers is limited. This result corroborates previous studies, which identi ed female young adults to be particularly more at risk of experiencing social loneliness than male young adults (Bu et al, 2020; Liu et al, 2020).…”

“…Loneliness, a negative subjective experience in an individual which arises when social relations and interactions are perceived to be insu cient (Peplau & Perlman, 1982), has been identi ed as a potential consequence of the mandatory lockdown imposed by the government to limit the spread of the coronavirus infection (Bu et al, 2020;Rauschenberg et al, 2020). Mounting evidence has shown a higher prevalence rate of loneliness among young people during the COVID-19 pandemic, when compared to older adults (Barreto et al, 2020). Various studies have estimated that at least 38% to 50% of young people aged 18-24 years old experienced higher levels of loneliness during the mandatory lockdown (Bu et al, 2020;Rauschenberg et al, 2020), with women having higher odds of experiencing loneliness than men (Losada-Baltar et al, 2020;Salo et al, 2020).…”

The relationship between perceived loneliness and depression in the elderly and influencing factors

“…However, if the high expectations of strong ties are not met, it can increase loneliness. A study on this topic reveals that people in individualist (against collectivist) countries experience more loneliness 14 . In Turkey, as in the countries of the world, elderly population is increasing.…”

Lonely and thinking about the past: the role of time perspectives, Big Five traits and perceived social support in loneliness of young adults during COVID-19 social distancing

“…According to a novel, worldwide study on the role of age, gender and cultural differences in loneliness of adults (conducted on N = 46,054 participants; Barreto et al, 2020), younger people, men and people in individualistic cultures report more loneliness than older people, women and people in collectivist cultures, respectively. These results suggest that age, gender and information about the culture of origin of participants (in the case of intercultural studies) need to be included as potential contributors to feelings of loneliness.…”