Loneliness publications

Book

This open-access volume accompanies the microdata release of the EU Loneliness Survey.

Loneliness, often referred to as the ‘epidemic of the 21st century’, has emerged as a grave public health concern. For years, a lack of comprehensive European cross-national data hindered a thorough examination of this issue. In 2022, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre conducted the inaugural EU Loneliness Survey, covering around 30,000 individuals in 27 European nations. The book sheds light on who is most affected by loneliness, identifies contributing experiences and behaviours, addresses the stigmatisation of loneliness and discusses its societal impact. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of interventions to combat loneliness. Finally, the book discusses the challenges of survey design and offers valuable insights for the monitoring of loneliness in Europe in the future. This makes the book a must-read for scholars and academics interested in population economics, public health and social well-being.

Methodological Report

This methodological report describes the technical specifications of the EU Loneliness Survey. The survey, conducted in November and December 2022, is the first EU-wide survey measuring loneliness through established multi-items scales. It also entails rich socio-demographic information of the respondents, and six additional modules covering a broad range of topics related to loneliness. Thereby, it provides an opportunity to evaluate the risk factors associated with loneliness, the potential consequences of loneliness and the level of awareness regarding existing programs and initiatives.

The survey was administered to two samples: the EU27 and the EU4 samples. The EU27 sample is collected though a non-probabilistic online survey targeting the general population aged 16 and above in all 27 EU Member States. Data were collected for a total of 25,646 respondents, recruited from established consumer panels. The EU4 sample covers only four EU Member States (France, Italy, Poland and Sweden) and is drawn from online random probability-based panels. Data were collected for 4,029 respondents aged 16 and above.

Policy Brief

• Approximately  34.5% and 26.1% of respondents aged 16-30 use social networking sites and instant messaging tools for over 2 hours per day, respectively. The corresponding figures for respondents 31 or older are 13.1% and 8.8%.
• Over one third of young respondents exhibit patterns of social media addiction. Approximatively 12% of respondents aged 31 or older fall into this category.
• Spending more than 2 hours per day on social network sites is associated with a substantial increase in the prevalence of loneliness. Intense passive use of social media is also linked with increased loneliness.
• There is not a significant association between intensive use of instant messaging tools or active use of social media and loneliness. The relationship between social media use and loneliness does not vary by age group.
• These findings are consistent with previous  research and suggest that how social media is used matters more than how often social media is used.  

Policy Brief

• Lonely people report fewer social contacts and low interpersonal trust. Findings show that the level of social integration underlies the strong link between loneliness and low trust in others.
• Individuals with lower levels of social integration in their formative years may be more susceptible to both loneliness and diminished trust in adulthood.
• Lonely people report a higher preference for risk when taking driving, financial or health related decisions.
• Loneliness motivates people to seek human contact as lonely people report a high willingness to engage in social activities (church visits and volunteering) and behaviours signalling positive social qualities (such as donating).
• Lonely people are more withdrawn from political life. They tend to believe that their voice does not count and consequently report lower turnout at elections.

Meeting report

On June 6th, 2023, the European Commission Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion hosted a high-level conference in Brussels.

The conference marked the conclusion of the European Parliament pilot project on “Monitoring Loneliness in Europe” carried out together with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The objectives of the conference were to:

1. present the pilot project, including results from the first ever EU-wide survey on loneliness,
2. discuss key findings with experts, top academics and practitioners,
3. share knowledge and experiences with policy makers and practitioners on effective solutions to combat loneliness.

Several key lessons and recommendations were drawn from the event:

1. loneliness is a public health issue with far-reaching consequences at societal level, including social cohesion and participation in democracy,
2. actions to tackle loneliness should be integrated across all policy areas,
3. better and long-term data collection on loneliness is needed to better understand its causes and develop tangible solutions to the problem.

Policy Brief

• Literature examining drivers of loneliness tends to focus on common demographics and socio- economic characteristics. The potential role played by an individual's childhood conditions have generally been overlooked so far.
• People who feel lonely are likely to have considerably poorer health than non-lonely counterparts. This could be partly explained by unhealthier behaviour of the lonely.
• Feelings of loneliness can be traced back to adverse childhood experiences. For example, almost one out of four adults that have experienced an adverse childhood event feels lonely, while this is only true for one out of 10 persons without negative childhood experiences. Younger adults are hit harder.
• Adverse childhood experiences, poor health as a child and mental health issues of the child’s relative are associated with loneliness in later life. These events remain of importance even if individual characteristics like employment status and education level are taken into account.
• The association of adverse childhood experiences with loneliness decreases with adult age.
• The importance of loneliness for occurring health problems calls for a higher recognition of loneliness as a serious public health issue and the active planning of loneliness interventions.
• Since the well-being of children matters for their later experiences of loneliness and poor health, greater focus should be dedicated to children’s mental well-being.

Policy Brief

• A newly developed online Mapping tool allows users to browse and search for loneliness interventions offered on the ground across the EU.
• Most interventions identified in the non-exhaustive mapping specifically target older adults (53%) while only 8% targets younger people. Given the prevalence of loneliness among youth, there is a need to increase the offer for this age group. Also other risk groups should be considered in interventions.
• The most common approach of interventions is to connect people (41%) or to provide group and/or social activities (26%) for the participants.
• Most interventions identified are implemented by NGOs (36%), followed by local governments (18%) and joint initiatives with several partners (13%).

Policy Brief

• A new EU-wide survey yields insights into how feelings of loneliness are related to the size and quality of social relationships, to major life events and to other important factors.
• In 2022, more than one third of respondents were lonely at least sometimes and 13% were lonely most of the time.
• The prevalence of loneliness decreases with increased age, income, and education.
• Having several meaningful relationships is associated with lower loneliness levels, but the frequency of contact also matters.
• People experiencing major life events such as separation, job loss or finishing their studies are more often lonely.

Policy Brief

• The policy brief summarises the results on loneliness interventions of a new EU-wide survey on loneliness which had over 25 000 respondents.
• Overall, 43% of respondents report being aware of loneliness interventions offered in their country.
• Lonely people are more stigmatised in societies where social norms are restraining individuals’ behaviour to a high extent and by men, young people and affluent respondents, as well as by very lonely individuals themselves.
• The large majority (73%) of respondents think that individuals and families should play a major role in supporting lonely people.
• The most common activities respondents do to alleviate loneliness include seeing friends and   family members (53%), taking time for themselves (44%), and using more social media (34%).
• Very lonely respondents report more often wanting to do something to feel less lonely but not knowing what to do.
• Promoting knowledge about how to support lonely family members and friends appears important. Interventions and outreach strategies should be tailored to consider cultural contexts, the level of loneliness and variation of social stigma, and different preferences for activities by participants.

JRC Conference and Workshop Report

On October 11th 2022, the JRC organised a Roundtable with experts to discuss effective actions to address loneliness. The objectives of the Roundtable were to:

1. present the European Commission’s findings on loneliness interventions
2. exchange and share knowledge among loneliness experts including researchers, policymakers and practitioners
3. build a network of loneliness intervention experts. Several key lessons and recommendations were drawn from the meeting

First, based on JRC’s systematic umbrella review on the effectiveness of interventions tackling loneliness, most reviewed studies reported reductions in loneliness. This is encouraging news for both service providers, users and funders of loneliness interventions. Yet, most studies have methodological weaknesses that make drawing robust conclusions challenging.

Second, JRC’s mapping of loneliness interventions and interviews with experts provides invaluable information that goes beyond scientific literature. Hence, the complementarities between qualitative and quantitative research should be exploited to gain a better understanding on what works to reduce loneliness and for whom.

Third, several good examples of loneliness interventions across the EU already exist, as presented during the breakout rooms. From the discussion, targeting and collaboration between different actors emerged as two success factors of loneliness interventions.

Literature review

The report provides an overview of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of interventions tackling loneliness by summarizing available systematic reviews and meta-analyses on this topic.

Despite the high relevance, research on the effectiveness of loneliness interventions is still a relatively young endeavour. However, there is an increasing demand for intervention strategies to address loneliness, even in the absence of a solid evidence base.
In this context, the systematic reviews and meta-analyses summarized here provide important insights into whether loneliness interventions work, which loneliness interventions are particularly effective, and in which areas more research on loneliness interventions is needed.

Meeting report

On May 12th 2022, the JRC organised an online seminar to bring together academics, practitioners and policy-makers to discuss interventions to reduce loneliness among youth. The objectives of the seminar were to

1. inform the EC’s work on loneliness;
2. exchange and share knowledge on loneliness interventions and what works to tackle loneliness among youth, and
3. build a network of intervention experts. Several lessons and recommendations were drawn from the meeting.

First, the ongoing European Year of Youth is a key moment to engage and support the young generation at EU level after two challenging years of the global pandemic.

Second, research on loneliness among youth has illustrated that loneliness becomes a problem when it becomes long-term. Therefore, interventions for youth are crucial to prevent and address the experience of chronic loneliness that can have negative implications for the future of young people.

Third, good examples were presented of how to design and implement loneliness interventions for youth. These included prevention and mitigation strategies at city level and a mobile App to reduce loneliness among students.

Literature Review

The link between loneliness and health has been extensively documented in scientific literature. Increasingly, loneliness is considered a public health problem and concern has amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. A clear understanding of the association between loneliness and mortality and morbidity is needed to judge the extent of loneliness as a public health challenge and the need for interventions.

This report summarizes evidence from the academic literature on the link between loneliness and health, addressing the following queries:

• Is loneliness associated with worse health outcomes?
• What are the mechanisms by which this may happen?
• And conversely, can being in bad health impact social connection and loneliness?

Technical report

We estimate the direct causal effect of loneliness on a variety of health outcomes using a sample of second-generation immigrants among older adults drawn from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

In an effort to account for the endogeneity of self-declared loneliness, we explore the link between loneliness and a specific trait of maternal cultural background strongly associated with quality of relations and use the latter as an instrument for loneliness.We thus also assess the importance of cultural heritage in shaping individuals' perceptions of loneliness. Additionally, we investigate one pathway by which some specific ancestral factors may influence the formation of cultural traits in the modern era.

Our results suggest that loneliness has a significant impact on health, both mental and physical. Notably, our identification strategy allows us to uncover a larger effect of loneliness on health than that found in an OLS setting. These findings are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks.

Policy Brief

This policy brief presents results on 15-year-olds loneliness feelings and discusses three questions:

1. Why is loneliness of children important?
2. Who is lonely?
3. What can mitigate loneliness - with a special focus on school characteristics.

Results show that in order to fight loneliness in schools, teachers are key. Students who perceive their teachers to be supportive are of a much lower risk to feel lonely. In addition, education policies should aim to decrease bullying within schools. A school climate aiming at improving cooperation between students can further mitigate loneliness.

It is important to support especially those students attending schools with on average low student performance. In whatever school climate students learn, it is the first generation immigrants as well as those who speak another language at home than the one in school who are more likely to feel lonely and therefore need special attention.

Literature Review

Increasing prevalence of social media use in modern societies, where a large part of the population is feeling lonely, has led to speculations regarding the possible links between social media use and loneliness.

This throughout review of empirical research evidence shows that such links indeed exist, and they are rather complex. Lonely people are more likely to turn to social media and they also often use it in specific ways and with specific motives. In return, social media can make them feel either more or less lonely – depending on a series of different factors, including for example how they use it, how much time they spend on such activities, but also their age and psychological dispositions.

The review concludes by offering some policy pointers based on the findings but it also identifies significant gaps in the existing literature.

Policy Brief

This policy brief provides cross-country evidence on the incidence of loneliness among older adults (50+) in the EU and an analysis of the risk factors for loneliness for this group of individuals. It also assesses the association between loneliness and a range of health outcomes, both physical and mental.

Mapping loneliness across EU Member States, identifying the risk factors for loneliness as well as understanding its health related implications may be of guidance for policymakers for the design and implementation of effective intervention to address loneliness.

Literature Review

The report provides a narrative review of the literature on the risk factors for loneliness.

Meeting report

On December 7th 2021, the JRC organised an informal expert meeting with academics, practitioners and policy-makers on interventions to address loneliness in Europe. The objectives of the informal expert meeting were to:

1. inform the European Commission’s work on loneliness;
2. exchange and share knowledge on loneliness interventions and what works to tackle loneliness among researchers, NGOs and policy makers
3. build a network of intervention experts.

Several key lessons and recommendations were drawn from the meeting.

First, based on a recent meta-analysis, presented in the meeting, loneliness interventions are effective although it is not possible to identify a specific intervention with a large effect on loneliness reduction. In other words, there is no “one size fits all” solution to loneliness. Further research with solid methodological quality and larger number of participants is needed to deepen the understanding on what works to prevent and mitigate loneliness in different contexts.

Second, several good examples of loneliness interventions across the EU already exist, as presented in the meeting, which can provide important lessons learnt for others in the field both from the intervention design and evaluation point of view.

Finally, the meeting put an emphasis on collaboration and dialogue between researchers and practitioners as a key way to develop effective solutions to tackle loneliness and to transfer the current attention into more knowledge that will benefit all.

Literature Review

The aim of this report is to collect and review empirical evidence on the effect of loneliness on social and civic behaviours, such as social trust, prosociality (volunteerism, philanthropy, willingness to help), political participation and political preferences.

Policy Brief

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization first described COVID-19 as a pandemic.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, lockdowns, quarantines, curfews, distancing measures and the cancellation of community activities and events have been implemented across Europe. While these measures were needed to control the spread of the virus, they have also led to forms of social isolation never experienced by present generations. The long-term effects on mental health are still unclear. However, experts have already warned that the toll of loneliness could have consequences long after the virus recedes.

Against this background, loneliness is increasingly recognised as an issue of public importance, with significant ramifications for social, economic and healthcare policies. This policy brief compares the incidence of loneliness in 2016 and during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose is to identify the socio-demographic characteristics frequently linked with loneliness, and examine whether the risks factors associated with loneliness changed after the outbreak of the pandemic. Therefore, this analysis contributes to assess the potential consequences for the population of extended periods of forced social isolation. The ultimate goal is to support the design of targeted and effective intervention strategies.

Report

Research shows that loneliness and social isolation have harmful repercussions on mental and physical health, as well as significant consequences on social cohesion and community trust. Both loneliness and social isolation are hence increasingly recognized critical public health issues that deserve attention and need to be addressed with effective intervention strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic has also dramatically reshaped Europeans’ lives and social practices. Mobility restrictions and social distancing measures adopted to contain the spread of the virus prompted public discussions on the unintended side effects of such provisions. In particular, some fear that the toll of loneliness could have consequences long after the virus recedes.

This report offers an overview of the current state of knowledge on loneliness and social isolation in the EU. It presents the main findings of two empirical analyses carried out by the JRC using two complementary sources of information, namely survey and online data. The analysis based on survey data offers a picture of recent trends in self-reported levels of loneliness across the EU and identifies the prevailing socio-demographic and geographical characteristics associated with loneliness before and during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey data show that the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the problem. The proportion of respondents that felt lonely frequently doubled following the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, young adults were hit more severely. The analysis based on online data looks at trends in online media reporting on loneliness and social isolation between January 2018 and January 2021.

The volume of articles on these topics is measured on a monthly basis and by Member State, and the collected articles are analysed in depth to identify the prevailing sentiments contained in them and detect patterns in the underlying narratives. Online media reporting on loneliness and social isolation has doubled during the pandemic. Narratives largely concerned the health consequences of loneliness. The analysis of online media reporting catalogues also typologies and examples of policy initiatives aimed at combating loneliness and social isolation. Public initiatives vary across Member States. Overall, most interventions are designed at local level and are rarely part of more systematic programmes.

See related JRC News

IZA Discussion paper

Concerns about loneliness and social isolation are growing more than ever. With the COVID-19 pandemic entering its second year, there are fears that the toll on loneliness could have consequences long after the virus recedes.

This study offers a comparative overview of the incidence and determinants of loneliness and social isolation in Europe in the pre-COVID-19 period.

Policy brief

• More than 75 million European adults meet with family or friends at most once a month and around 30 million European adults frequently feel lonely.
• Loneliness is more prevalent in Eastern and Southern Europe than in Western and Northern Europe.
• Poor health, unfavourable economic circumstances and living alone are all associated with higher rates of loneliness.
• Loneliness affects all age groups. Even though the elderly may be more socially isolated than other age groups, they do not report more frequent feelings of loneliness.

See related JRC news