Ageing and Loneliness: A Life Course and Cumulative Disadvantage Approach

Abstract

Loneliness is emerging as a significant issue in modern societies with impacts on health and wellbeing. Many of the existing studies on loneliness focus on its contemporaneous correlates. Drawing on life course and cumulative disadvantage theory and data from qualitative interviews with 50 older adults living in the community, we examine how past events shape variations in later-life loneliness. We identify four factors that are of significance for understanding loneliness: (1) Formation of social networks; (2) history of familial support; (3) relocation and migration, and (4) widowhood and separation. Our findings point to the importance of maintenance of social ties over the adult life course while at the same time highlighting how disruptions to social networks impact on later-life loneliness. We also find that loneliness and disadvantage, like other social or health outcomes, compound over time.