Taking stock of loneliness in the European Union: A future pathway

The closing chapter of Loneliness in Europe (Springer, 2024, open access), by Sylke V. Schnepf, Caterina Mauri and Béatrice d'Hombres of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, reflects on the book's findings from the 2022 EU Loneliness Survey and sets out a research and policy agenda.

In 2022 more than a third of respondents felt lonely at least sometimes and 13% most of the time — which, the authors estimate, suggests almost 50 million Europeans aged 16 and over feel lonely most of the time. They caution that the main sample is a non-probability online panel, so levels and cross-country comparisons need care.

More than 27,000 respondents aged 16 and over across all 27 member states; three measures of loneliness (one direct question and two psychometric scales) used together in a cross-national survey for the first time; and a secondary probability sample in four countries to test robustness. Open questions remain on survey mode, whether scales designed for older people suit other ages, and how "loneliness" translates across languages.

Younger adults are lonelier than middle-aged and older adults — at odds with a literature and a set of interventions focused on the elderly. Recent moves, severe conflict at home or work, separation and job loss raise the risk; sexual minorities and people with a migration background are more affected; an unhappy partnership is worse than none. One in four adults report a bad relationship with their parents in childhood, and adverse childhood experiences add 4–8 points to the likelihood of adult loneliness. Four or more hours of social media a day is associated with more loneliness. Lonely people take more risks, trust others less and vote less, but donate and volunteer more.

The authors call for effects on social connection to be assessed for new EU policies under the Better Regulation guidelines; regular, ideally longitudinal, monitoring; rigorous evaluation of interventions, with a shared archive of evaluations; continued dialogue across disciplines; and more research on remote work, social media and — explicitly not covered in the volume — whether public and shared spaces protect against loneliness.

The chapter names the role of the built environment and shared spaces as an open research question rather than a finding.