Early life adversities and discrimination, social activity, and loneliness among older adults in Europe: a moderated mediation analysis

Abstract

Objective

The present study explores how and when lifetime discriminatory experience moderates the mediation effect of early life adversities and social activity on loneliness among older European adults over eight years.

Method

The study analyzed 13,699 respondents aged 50 years and over who were interviewed in 2009 and re-interviewed in 2017 in the European Survey of Health, Ageing, Retirement. Conditional process analysis using the PROCESS model 15 was applied to examine the moderated mediation effect of lifetime discriminatory experience in 2009 (W) on early life adversities in 2009 (X) and social activity at 2017 (M) to loneliness in 2017 (Y).

Results

Our moderated mediation models found that early life adversities (X) are associated with loneliness (Y) (Coeff X→Y=-0.0501, p<.001), but social activity (M) reduces its effect on loneliness (Y) (Coeff X→M→Y=-1.6391, p<.001). However, lifetime discriminatory experience (W) hampers social activity (Coeff M*W→Y = 0.0955, p<.05) and increases loneliness (Coeff X*M→Y = 0.6069, p<.05).

Conclusion

Older adults experiencing early life adversities may not necessarily develop later life loneliness. However, lifetime discriminatory experience due to political beliefs, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation/background etc. may reverse the positive effect of social engagement on the relationship between early life adversities and loneliness. Early interventions should address discrimination and social inequalities and increase social participation across the life course to prevent the development of later-life loneliness among older adults.

Keywords:

• Intersectional life course analysis
• conditional process analysis
• Survey of Health
• Ageing
• Retirement
• in Europe (SHARE)’

Acknowledgements

This article uses data from SHARE Waves 3 and 7 (DOIs: 10.6103/SHARE.w3.710, 10.6103/SHARE.w7.711), see Börsch-Supan et al. (2019) for methodological details. The SHARE data collection has been funded by the European Commission, DG RTD through FP5 (QLK6-CT-2001-00360), FP6 (SHARE-I3: RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE: CIT5-CT-2005-028857, SHARELIFE: CIT4-CT-2006-028812), FP7 (SHARE-PREP: GA N°211909, SHARE-LEAP: GA N°227822, SHARE M4: GA N°261982, DASISH: GA N°283646) and Horizon 2020 (SHARE-DEV3: GA N°676536, SHARE-COHESION: GA N°870628, SERISS: GA N°654221, SSHOC: GA N°823782) and by DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion through VS 2015/0195, VS 2016/0135, VS 2018/0285, VS 2019/0332, and VS 2020/0313. Additional funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01_AG09740-13S2, P01_AG005842, P01_AG08291, P30_AG12815, R21_AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG_BSR06-11, OGHA_04-064, HHSN271201300071C, RAG052527A) and from various national funding sources is gratefully acknowledged (see www.share-project.org).

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

Ethics approval

The SHARE study is subject to continuous ethics review. During Waves 1 to 4, SHARE was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Mannheim. Wave 4 of SHARE and the continuation of the project were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Council of the Max Planck Society.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.