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. 2021 Feb 1:169:110066.
doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110066.

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

Manuela Barreto  1 , Christina Victor  2 , Claudia Hammond  3 , Alice Eccles  4 , Matt T Richins  1 , Pamela Qualter  4
Affiliations

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

Manuela Barreto et al. Pers Individ Dif. .

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.

Keywords: Age; BBC loneliness experiment; Culture; Gender; Loneliness.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Unstandardized Loneliness Frequency as a function of Age and Individualism (1a), Age and Gender (1b), and Gender and Individualism (1c).
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