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

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to explore whether and how loneliness in adults was influenced by life events and experiences in early and later stages in life. Applying a life-course and gender perspective, the current study investigates statuses and transitions that influence self-reported loneliness among men and women in middle age (age 40–59) and when older (age 60–80).

Method: The panel data are from two waves of the Norwegian study of the life course, ageing and generations. Our sample consists of 3750 people aged 40–80 at baseline who were surveyed in 2002–2003 (T1) and 2007–2008 (T2). Multivariate analyses were used to investigate personal characteristics and life events associated with loneliness at baseline and life events predicting the incidence of loneliness during the five-year period.

Results: Adverse childhood events were associated with loneliness by both men and women. In the older group, men's loneliness was related to having been bullied, and conflicts between parents. Women's loneliness was related to economic problems in their childhood family. Regarding the incidence of loneliness – becoming lonely between T1 and T2 – among those aged 40–59, divorce predicted women becoming lonely, but not men. Among those aged 60–80, the partner's death was a stronger predictor of the incidence of loneliness among men than among women.

Conclusion: 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.

Keywords:

• loneliness
• life course
• life events
• gender
• longitudinal study

The NorLAG and LOGG surveys are financed by the Research Council of Norway (grant no. 149564 and 168373), Ministry of Health and Care Services, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion, Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA) and Statistics Norway. The LOGG and NorLAG data-sets are part of the ACCESS Life Course infrastructure project funded by the National Financing Initiative for Research Infrastructure at the Research Council of Norway (grant no. 195403) and NOVA. The authors thank Knut Engedal and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and comments.

Note

Notes

1. Subjective health is often measured by these or similar adjectives. As personal assessments, they do not denote clear categories, but indicate ordinal arranged evaluations. This dichotomization arranges those assessing their health in the upper part of the Likert scale (1–3) as being in ‘good’ health and those assessing their health in the lower part of the scale (4 or 5) as being in ‘poor’ health.